P A R T I T I O N S

[Steve UK]

i have read many articles on partitioning in xp and most advocate a seperate
programs parrtition. does anybody know how to change the default location
for program files folder.

i have a partition labelled P:\ and have installed all of my programs onto
it but i still have the default c:\program files with all sorts of stuff in
it.

can i move it to 'P' and if so how do i tell windows that it has moved?

i have tried using tweak xp as suggested in an article on auhma.org but this
does not work.

thanks.

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

I've read lots of articles on partitioning as well, and very few have
suggested putting the programs in a separate partition. There's little
reason to do so.

What you have discovered is that many programs need to be installed at least
partially in the system partition, no matter where you try to install them.
That cannot be changed.

Rocky

 

[Steve UK]

you may be interested to read this..

http://www.aumha.org/a/parts.htm

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

"I haven’t yet comprehensively updated this article for Windows 2000/XP.
Reading through it, although I see some different directions I might go."

My friend, you - and anyone else - are free to set up your hard disk in any
way it pleases you. I stand by my original post.

I would be interested to know, however, if you find a way to force your
programs not to install any part of themselves into the system partition.

Rocky

 

[Steve UK]

yes, i see your point. this article seems to suggest that you can keep
things seperate but for instance when installing norton internet security it
will allow you to point it wherever but then says that shared application
files will be installed to c:, so i guess it's not entirely possible.

it may make it easier to do a clean install in the future if most are
seperate though.

thanks.

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

You've raised a good point. Let's work through it.

Let's say that Windows - only - is in C: and all your programs are in D: and
you want to do a clean install of Windows into C:. A clean install means a
brand new registry, which contains no references to your original programs
or your updated drivers, so you're going to have to reinstall them. OTOH, if
you let your programs install into C:, you can image a known good,
beautifully setup configuration that you can re-write to your hard disk in
minutes, should Windows go kaboom.

That's not to say that there's no reason to ever install a program into a
different partition, but you'd need to have a special reason. Most users
would have no need to do that, but there are probably special cases where
this makes sense. I can't think of one right now, so perhaps another poster
can help me out.

Rocky

 

[JAX]

Hi Guys,

Most all programs will install certain files to the OS drive, no way around
it. There are some programs though that should be "installed" to a separate
drive, preferably a different HD. PhotoShop is an example. The reason is,
those programs have their own "page file" and can cause conflicts.

The main advantage I have seen in having a separate partition for programs,
other than the reason already mentioned, is found in running system
maintenance and search operations. It's obvious, the fewer files you have to
go through, the less time it takes.

There may be some performance hit in the amount of "seek" time for the HD by
having a separate partition but, I doubt you would ever notice it.

IMHO, JAX

 

[bullwinkel J. Moose]

I find it very useful to put my system into "C:" my programs into "D" and my
data and backups into "E".

The reasoning is simple most programs do not place parts of themselves into
the system drive so that when the disk crashes as it will eventually your
data is safe in another disk drive.

Of course it also lets you backup data more easily onto CD's or other
external media. The idea making it easier to safeguard your system.

I have a 120 gig drive which is used mainly as backup and safety media. All
my pictures are in a drive for pictures only. I test a lot of programs and I
save the programs on another logical drive with another drive beig used as a
testbed.

The system drive "C:" and my main programs are safe on "D:" and "E".

To keep only one partition for everything is not cool. If/When your os
crashes and you have to reinstall the os you have lost everything. No safe
by any stretch.

Everyone sets things up to suite themselves. So my way might not suite you
but you get the idea. The purpose is to safeguard data. You always can
reinstall programs.

 

[JAX]

"The reasoning is simple most programs do not place parts of themselves into
the system drive"

Beg to pardon, most programs do at least make an entry into the registry,
and most install files to the OS, otherwise, they can't run.

JAX

 

[bullwinkel J. Moose]

That's true up to a point. For that reason it is good to make a backup of
the registry and the C:\windows\system32 moving the backups off the C:\
drive either onto a backup drive of CDRom. I do this periodically so that
"when" the system crashes as it will do everything else will be saved.

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

I believe my practice is much simpler: I let all software install itself
into the system partition. Using Norton Ghost, and less than 7 minutes of my
time, I image the system partition regularly. Should a problem arise, I am
less than 7 minutes away from being back at work as if nothing happened.

Rocky

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 11:38:03 -0500, "Rocket J. Squirrel"

Let's say that Windows - only - is in C: and all your programs are in D: and
you want to do a clean install of Windows into C:. A clean install means a
brand new registry, which contains no references to your original programs
or your updated drivers, so you're going to have to reinstall them.

Depends on the programs - some do, some don't. Accordingly, I install
core highly-integrated apps like MS Office on C:, and more stand-alone
programs such as DOS utilities off C:. Some apps store their state
data within their subtree rather than within Windows, and those apps
would also be good candidates to install off C:

if you let your programs install into C:, you can image a known good,
beautifully setup configuration that you can re-write to your hard disk in
minutes, should Windows go kaboom.

Which you store... where?

That is the only plausible "system backup" for XP, given how rickety
XP is when it comes to surviving file-level transfers (Executive
summary: It doesn't). Because you want to avoid malware that may
arrive in May and kill in July, you'd want to keep an initial
known-good image rather than last week's copy, and you'd want all
dynamic state info, settings, data etc. outside of that scope.

Then your rebuild plan would be...
- splat back the known-good original image
- restore data and settings info
....while excluding the malware, of course.

The last bit means you need data hygiene, which is a concept MS
haven't begun to grope towards yet, let alone grasped.

That's not to say that there's no reason to ever install a program into a
different partition, but you'd need to have a special reason.

Non-critical, seldom-used, bloated programs such as games, reference
titles etc. are best kept off C: so that C: can be kept lean, fast and
small enough to image onto something you won't be tempted to use for
something more immediately rewarding, like holding a 60G
movie-and-music collection

You can't, really. There are always shared .dll and other such trash.

It's defined in the registry - but I'll bet you will regularly trip
over apps that are hard-coded to ASSume C:, plus bits of the programs
are liable to wind up in C: anyway (.DLLs etc.)

There are many things I fiddle with, and several I leave alone as
being too much hassle, too brittle and not worthwhile. I'd deffo file
"Program Files" relocation into the latter category.

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