several logical partitions or several mounted partitions

[Guest]

I am building a new small office system and after much research have decided
to format my hdd with separate partitions for OS, Documents and Settings,
Program Files, Temp files.

It seems that the traditional way to do this is to reset paths for each of
these items to the new location (in the registry, or environment variables).
However, it seems that doing this via mounted logical partitions (logical
drives) is a very easy way to do this. For example; I could mount a partition
as C:\Documents and Settings, and another as C:\Program Files. In this manner
all Documents and Settings activity and all programs installed would
automatically be on these partitions. The operation would be transparent to
the user.

Am I full of BS or is this a viable way to do this? What's the downside if
any?

Also, I think the Windows Temp folders are moved to a different partition by
setting the system environmental variables to the new path. Please correct me
if I am wrong. Since the users temp folders are contained in Documents and
Settings I suppose they don't have to be redirected unless I wanted them on a
partition different than the Documents and Settings partition.

I have found virtually no posts in the XP forums relating to Mounted Logical
Partitions. Whats up with that?

 

[S. Taylor]

Im not a pro, but i can tell that playing with the enviroment variables
isn't necessary to do what you want.
You can use Microsoft's Tweak UI Powertoy to change
the location of many of the special folders default location

 

[Guest]

That's how Tweak UI does it. It changes the system variables or registry
entries. It is doing the same thing.