Program Installation Location

[Jewels]

I'm wondering whether installing programs to a different partition to the Windows partition has any benefits over installing into the usual C:\Program Files\ directory. I heard that it helps Windows load faster or something, so I've been blindly following that route without really considering its validity.

 

[ECTech]

Your best bet is to keep all of windows in 1 single partition, then use your second partition for data only. This way in the event of virus's, malware, etc. you can wipe windows clean and still have all your data.

 

[Win2kpatcher]

I wouldnt advise doing this. The only time I would reccomend doing this is if there is a space issue or lack of space on C:\, There is no performance benefit. There is however a performance benefit if you move your pagefile to a differnt physical hard drive not just a seperate partition on the same drive.

 

[penfold]

Also, with some programs, it will cause a problem if you install it somewhere other than C: ... for a while I was running a computer whose default drive was F: instead of C: and there *was* no C: on that computer. It caused untold problems.

 

[Osiris]

I'm wondering whether installing programs to a different partition to the Windows partition has any benefits over installing into the usual C:\Program Files\ directory. I heard that it helps Windows load faster or something, so I've been blindly following that route without really considering its validity.

who told you this?

 

[Jewels]

Honestly can't remember. Maybe it was actually separating Windows from files. I've always kept files on a separate partition, but program installation locations are currently split between C: and another partition.

I'm getting a new 250 GB drive, and re-installing Windows. At the moment I'm thinking of having a 20 GB partition for Windows (XP Home) and programs, 30 GB for games (I'm not that much of a gamer), and 200 GB for file storage.

 

[Osiris]

Well as long as you are comfortable with paritioning you should be fine

 

[fixal0t]

well the same arm/heads read all partitions on a HDD
so if you want to do this to increase performance, put games(with large maps n-stuff) and pagefile on a different physical HDD rather than the same one as the OS