Emulator

If I can destroy my saves simply by upgrading to your next release, that's not just a user error, that's also a problem with release packaging that's worth fixing.

Just by upgrading to a new release? You can't. You can destroy your saves by blindly copying files and overwriting them. There's nothing we can do to prevent you from doing that.

Those two things are the same given how the releases are packaged, hence the note that this is a packaging problem.

The release is a zip file (7z archive), so following the general conventions of archive-distributed software, the expectation is that you know archive installs and upgrades are based on "unpack, ovewriting the old files". If that approach can destroy saves, then there is something worth fixing.

What you could to do prevent it is make the application follow platform conventions, including storing data in a separate directory as per 6448 (and possibly having an installer).

That cannot possibly destroy your saves. Ask on the forums if you need more help.

FWIW, I've never heard of any "general conventions of archive-distributed software". In fact, the few examples I've had of upgrading archive-distributed software required you to pick-and-choose, replacing the program itself and any libs and all that while making sure not to overwrite your configs (or, heck, even manually merge newer options into your old configs or edit the new one to match the old one) and userdata and everything. Rarely, if ever, have I had an "unpack, overwriting the old files" type of install that didn't require me to pay some goddamn attention to what I'm overwriting. You have weird expectations, methinks.

That said, the fact that Dolphin stores its User folder right next to the executable/libs on Windows instead of in whatever the equivalent to ~/.dolphin-emu/ or ~/Library/Application Support/Dolphin/ would end up being on Windows is really fucking brain-dead and needs to be fixed ASAP. Ain't no one got time for manually copying their User folder between builds at this rate of development.

Kind of a waste of writing there. This has been fixed as of shortly before 4.0, all your data's now supposed to go in your Documents folder. Get a current build from https://dolphin-emu.org/download/ (either 4.0 or the latest dev build is fine) and refer to this guide: https://dolphin-emu.org/docs/guides/controlling-global-user-directory/ It should be straightforward enough.

Also, honestly, if you're smart you shouldn't ever be blindly overwriting files. Look at what's in there first. Not the developers' fault at all if you forget to take your hamster out of his cage before destroying his cage and replacing it with a new one, y'know?