Ken said:
I am thinking of repartitioning my hard drive. I'd like to partition
my drive to C and D. I am wondering if I can backup my current
configuration (drive is currently a single partition) to my external
and after repartitioning, restore my applications under Program Files
to my new D partition. I'm trying to avoid going through the hassle
of reinstalling all my aps. Thanks for your help.
First of all, note that no version of Windows provides any way of changing
the existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way
to do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the
best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One
such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a
free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you want within that 30
days. I haven't used it myself, but it comes highly recommended by several
other MVPs here.
If you're planning on using such a third-party application to repartition
and you want to keep the operating system on C: and put your apps on D:, it
may be because you think that if you ever have to reinstall the operating
system, you'll at least still have your apps and won't have to reinstall
them. Unfortunately, that's false. All applications (except for an
occasional tiny app) have many components and references to themselves in
the \Windows folder--in the registry and elsewhere. If you reinstall
Windows, you lose all of this and the apps won't work unless you also
reinstall them.
For that reason, there's usually no value to putting your apps on any
partition other than the one Windows is on. Separating data can have value,
but not apps.
You have the same problem in trying to move apps to another partition. In
this case, you don't lose the references entirely, but they are end up all
being wrong. There are several third-party programs that purport to search
out and change the references for you, such as COA2.exe. I've had limited
success with such apps--they found most references, but missed some--and I
recommend reinstalling as the safest way to do this.
If on the other hand, you're planning on doing a clean installation,
reformatting and creating two new partitions as part of this clean
installation, you have no choice: you must reinstall the apps.