all is lost - no recurring recordings no EPG etc

[CornStopper]

I've had no problems upgrading when installed in another place.

[johnsonx42]

I've just solved the same problem another way, when running PVRX2 I "run as administrator" and it works with no other changes, presumably as administrator is allow to write to the Program Files folder.

To permanently "run as administrator" right click on the PVRX2 short cut you use, perhaps it's the one on the start programs menu, select properties, then "Compatibility" and under "Privilege level" tick "Run this program as an administrator".
Each time you run PVRX2 you will get the UAC warning which you can "Allow", unless disable UAC altogether.

The downside to this is if you ever edit the config.xml or make other changes in the files (such as copying in a patched file) without first elevating to administrator level, your changes may appear to vanish because they got written to the user's virtual store instead of to the real location.

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if I would install in C:/apps or elsewhere could there then be any future issues when upgrading?

I'd recommend you just install it to the normal place, and update the file security to allow all users full access to gbpvr.db3/config.xml. It'd probably be fine installing to a different directory, but I dont test that, so cant really recommend it.

if I want to separate database place to c:GBPVR where do I change that? - any future issues when upgrading ?

There is some registry settings to change to move GB-PVR's "data directory", but I'm not going to advise you go down that path. It'll make supporting GB-PVR more of a hassle for me if people start moving files to other locations.