where to put my programs with XP
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 by Eddie Hill | Discussion: Windows XP
I only recently switched over to XP and finaly bougt a second drive with 160 gig.
my old harddrive is 20 gig (this was a dreammachine 4 years ago!) it's partitinoned
like this C:\= 10 gig D:\=5 gig E:\=5 gig
but i'm runing out of room on the C:\ drive, partitionmagic is 89 dollars so that's not
an option now i read somewhere that somebody install all his programs on his next drive
and leaves the C:\ drive for windows. is this an option, i seem to remmeber it wasn't a good
idear under windows 98SE but it might have changed for XP
Answers very much apreciated, it would save me a format C:
Cheers Eddie
my old harddrive is 20 gig (this was a dreammachine 4 years ago!) it's partitinoned
like this C:\= 10 gig D:\=5 gig E:\=5 gig
but i'm runing out of room on the C:\ drive, partitionmagic is 89 dollars so that's not
an option now i read somewhere that somebody install all his programs on his next drive
and leaves the C:\ drive for windows. is this an option, i seem to remmeber it wasn't a good
idear under windows 98SE but it might have changed for XP
Answers very much apreciated, it would save me a format C:
Cheers Eddie
wizmonster
Reply #2 Monday, April 25, 2005 1:00 AM
Reply #2 Monday, April 25, 2005 1:00 AM
If you're careful with your icon "properties", XP will gladly accept a bunch of partitions and/or drives for all kinds of personalized setups, so have at it and just be mindful of all those paths. 
Good Luck, Eddie!
Good Luck, Eddie!
Chris TH
Reply #3 Monday, April 25, 2005 3:04 AM
Reply #3 Monday, April 25, 2005 3:04 AM
I've always been a 'partition & separate' person especially OS & apps.
In the end, the design of XP is such that wherever you install apps, they fill the registry with gunk and paths pointing to hither & yon that it probably makes very little practical difference to separate the OS & programs.
I always dreamed of being able to reinstall the OS without having to reinstall all the apps to but the infiltration of the registry makes it all but impossible.
Keeping your data separate makes sense for easier backups and/or transfers to new systems so that's probably a good idea.
In the end, the design of XP is such that wherever you install apps, they fill the registry with gunk and paths pointing to hither & yon that it probably makes very little practical difference to separate the OS & programs.
I always dreamed of being able to reinstall the OS without having to reinstall all the apps to but the infiltration of the registry makes it all but impossible.
Keeping your data separate makes sense for easier backups and/or transfers to new systems so that's probably a good idea.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, April 5, 2005 10:48 AM
It is actually a great idea to have the c:\ just as a boot partition. You should probably start from scratch though just to make things all clean. I've got my c:\ as the boot partition, d:\ for installing programs onto and e:\ for all the data files (docs, graphics, music, etc.) When I need to do a backup, I just backup the entire e drive.