I didn't discover this - but it was reported to me by a friend and former coworker, Nathan Dintenfass. I'm copying his findings here verbatim:
I was trying to install CF8 on a new MacBook Pro, and I kept getting an error that said "installer user interface mode not supported". I tried updating my java VM, but no dice. Turns out the issue is that the installer app was in a folder containing a "!", and that special character in the path prevented it from loading. Once I moved the installer to a path without a special character it worked.
Interesting! I can't imagine ever naming a folder like that though. Anyone else run into this?
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I usually add an "_" or "!" if I want to float a folder to the top of a directory.
I usually add a graveyard folder as _graveyard, and if I am on a server with a shared database, I add my Datasource as !datasource. This way, I'm first on the list (before all the people with "A's".
Thankfully, this bit of wisdom came in handy once again -- I used Google to figure out WTF was up with my install, and sure enough, I had already faced this same problem 2.5 years earlier ;)