multibooting

[ivenholt]

I am running W2K on my c: drive...I also have a d:
partition, with most of my apps.I am going to install XP
pro on a new partition.
My question{s} is does it affect the speed of windows
dependent of where the os partiton is?
Also do I have to reinstall all of my programs and apps
under XP? ie: what can be shared? TIA

 

[Ray at]

I am running W2K on my c: drive...I also have a d:
partition, with most of my apps.I am going to install XP
pro on a new partition.
My question{s} is does it affect the speed of windows
dependent of where the os partiton is?

No. (Some may disagree and say that seek times could be longer on the hard
drive, but I'd say that this is arguable, and if true, negligible.)

Also do I have to reinstall all of my programs and apps
under XP? ie: what can be shared? TIA

Yes, you have to reinstall them. When you install an application, the
install doesn't just copy files to a certain location. In addition to that,
it makes registry entries, adjusts certain settings based on the OS,
registers controls, and other such stuff. All of these things have to be
done on the new OS. Some people install their applications to the same
directory as on their other OS and just install right over top, but I don't
think this is a good idea. Disk space is cheap these days, so there's no
sense in creating potential conflicts and headaches to save a gig of disk
space.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

No. (Some may disagree and say that seek times could be longer on the hard
drive, but I'd say that this is arguable, and if true, negligible.)


Yes, you have to reinstall them. When you install an application, the
install doesn't just copy files to a certain location. In addition to that,
it makes registry entries, adjusts certain settings based on the OS,
registers controls, and other such stuff. All of these things have to be
done on the new OS. Some people install their applications to the same
directory as on their other OS and just install right over top, but I don't
think this is a good idea. Disk space is cheap these days, so there's no
sense in creating potential conflicts and headaches to save a gig of disk
space.

I fully agree. Furthermore, since you're starting afresh, consider
establishing a proper multi-booting environment where every OS
is completely invisible to every other OS. You cannot do this
with the inbuilt Win2000/XP boot manager but you can easily do
it with third-party boot loaders such as XOSL (free!).