KnockoutJS mapping.fromJSON struggling with backslashes (file path values) - asp.net-mvc

Question

I am trying to pass an object structure to my html, to bind to an href. The problem becomes file path (path to an .exe) are not understood because of '\'.
example below:
var categories = ko.mapping.fromJSON('[{"Applications":[{"Documentation":null,"ApplicationId":2,"Name":"PSSE","Description":"Model software","LocalExePath":"aecies://runApp?C:\Program Files (x86)\MyApp\app.exe"}],"Name":"foobar"}]');
Sorry if i messed up some syntax, i was taking a much larger json object and compressing it for an example, may have missed a bracket somewhere. Anyway, what comes out in categories for the ExePath, in the above case, is a string with the '\'s removed. If I force it to be '\\' for every '\', it fails saying don't understand identifier P (clearly breaking at C:\Program).
Martin's answer seems to be what I want, but what i put in the question was what do I need for fromJSON. The problem is that isn't what my code actually looks like. That is what is spit out from #Html.Raw(). Below I have added my actual code. The problem is I can't just add another replace all \ with four \'s because it adds \ to every JSON title. (ends up looking like [{\\\\"Applications\\\\")
var categories = ko.mapping.fromJSON(
'#Html.Raw(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Model.Categories,
Formatting.None,
new JsonSerializerSettings { StringEscapeHandling = StringEscapeHandling.EscapeHtml, ReferenceLoopHandling = ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore}
).Replace("\\u0022", "\\\"").Replace("\"", "\\\""))');
The two possible fixes I have used are string.replace in the controller to format the data there. Or to have two slashes for every one in my database record. After it goes through the serialize and the Html.Raw, it ends up with the correct 4 amount if it has 2 in the database. Is there a third option that would allow me to store the actual path string (no extra slashes, 'C:\HelloDir\') in the database, but add a line to my Razor code to replace the slashes I care about.
Edit: stackoverflow didn't like me doing double slashes, which is perfect because there is lies the majority of my problem with the mapping.
Edit2: There is more to the question

Answer 1

You'll actually need four backslashes because you're going through 2 layers of decoding:
JavaScript string literal (turns \\ to \)
JSON decoding (turns \\ to \)
So you'll want:
var categories = ko.mapping.fromJSON('[{"Applications": [{"Documentation":null,"ApplicationId":2,"Name":"PSSE","Description":"Model software","LocalExePath":"aecies://runApp?C:\\\\Program Files (x86)\\\\MyApp\\\\app.exe"}],"Name":"foobar"}]');
you can see some more examples at
http://jsfiddle.net/gjb4h0jy/2/

Answer 2

For anyone looking for the solution to the slash problem, I have figured out that clearly that EscapeHtml entry was blowing things up. If I remove that and then handle specific special characters that I want escaped with Replace statements, everything works perfectly.
var categories = ko.mapping.fromJSON(
'#Html.Raw(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Model.Categories,
Formatting.None,
new JsonSerializerSettings { ReferenceLoopHandling = ReferenceLoopHandling.Ignore}
).Replace(#"\r\n", "").Replace(#"'", #"\'").Replace(#"/", #"\/").Replace(#"\\", #"\\\\").Replace("\"", "\\\""))');