Can I load winXP on drive d:?

[KevS]

I wish to partition the 40Gb C drive into 2 partitions, c: 30Gb for progs and D: 8Gb for XP & pagefile, so that progs still load in the usual default drive C: and XP is more easily reloaded in D: when/if neccessary, and the pagefile should stay unfragmented. Is this feasible, and, more importantly, practical?
Cheers,
KevS :
o

 

[JMMD]

You can install XP to a drive other than C.
The problem that you'll have is that none of the registry entries or system files that get installed with your programs will be there if you re-install XP. The programs (most of them) won't run without these registry keys or supporting files.

 

[X DarthMonkey X]

Actually, you can do it. If something goes wrong with your programs and you have to format, you will only need to format [C], thus you will keep your OS and not have to go through the labor-intensive process of reinstalling Wondows.

I believe Microsoft actually reccomends a similar setup.

Go for it!

 

[C0d3Warr10r]

Reverse though

I believe the thought process is more like this:

Install Windows XP on the C: Drive

Install all additional software on D: Drive

As an added bonus, this also prevents alot of odd errors/malfunctions in poorly programmed applications because they often assume the Windows directory is on C:

In reference to the pagefile - I find I have better performance increase if the page file is on a seperate physical disk from the OS. My synthetic benchmarks showed a notable improvement. As far as fragmentation goes, you have to kill the page file all together, reboot, defrag the drive that housed the pagefile, recreate the pagefile on the desired drive, and finally reboot. Its really not possible to prevent the pagefile from becoming fragmented over time.

C0d3Warr10r

 

[Samstoned]

make sure if you plan on a lot of porgrams ,use 10gb partition,cause no matter what partition you install proggies to some will write to c or the base OS partition drive
one such file created (common files) license files,
most all MS software works better (if at all)when run with OS
Mozilla ,firefox works better

and a hello to C0d3Warr10r glad to have you here.

 

[X DarthMonkey X]

Samstoned is right, some programs don't give you much choice as to where you install them. And all programs write to the main partition when you install them, either for temp files or adding registry entries or system files.