support very old julia versions slightly better

[LilithHafner]

• add tilde expansion
• add tests
• only make dirs once and use more unique name
• update tests to account for the fact that this wont work on windows
• use install_location instead of bin in tests so that it works on windows
• try again with windows tests
• fixup
• fix typo
• support very old julia versions slightly better

[LilithHafner]

This is a change in tests which don't fail on CI, and that change does not make tests stricter, so I don't see much motivation. The git history is poor because this PR is formed from a branch other than master