What files make up the operating system?

Hi everyone,

Running XP Pro Drive size 250GB

Have just installed Director Suite and True Image and have made a copy of the ' C ' drive which is not partionend at the moment

Looking through the Acronis blurb they suggest having three or more partions one for the operating system, one for programs and another for documents

My question are:

On the C partition what files go to make up the operating system, I am assuming that the Windows folder is one of them

As I have already installed director and true image in the C partition in the programs folder what are the implications of moving the program folder to a new partion - are they still going to run or will they need reinstalling?

What file holds all the information on prgrams that you have registered ie Dreamweaver, Cute Ftp etc etc

I have recently had to reinstall XP and as a result al settings were lost including all ftp addresses paswwords to the sites etc - fortunately these are all on paper but what a time it is going to take to put it all back together again - hence the purchase of True Image

Answers to the above questions would be most apprecaited along with comments of how you would partion the drive and what partion you have your program files in etc

Thanks - Mel

 

Mel:

The operating system is mostly stored in C:\Windows, the programs themselves are in C:\Program Files and the user files are in C:\Documents and Settings in a "normal" Windows installation.

If you're starting from scratch you can create a separate partition to hold the "Program Files" folder and then direct each program to install itself to that folder. It's somewhat tricky to take an existing Windows installation and move the programs to a new partition without reinstalling them. It can be done but it may involve hunting through the registry to change pointers to the program files. Not for the faint of heart.

Personally, I don't see much advantage in doing it this way. Two partitions are really all you need and a big improvement over one partition. You would create one partition for Windows and programs and a second for your document files. The advantage of doing this is that if a software problem causes the operating system to be corrupted and unbootable, your documents are safe on another partition and can be more easily recovered. Also, you can reinstall the OS or use TrueImage to restore only the C: partition without affecting your document files.

The easiest way to achieve this is to use Disk Director to first shrink the size of your C partition and then to create a new partition in the remaining free space. Be sure to format the new partition with the NTFS filesystem. Before doing this, decide how much space you want to allocate to each partition. Then after you've partitioned your drive, use Windows to relocate your "My Documents" folder to the new partition and train yourself to always save your personal files there.

Mark

 

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the comments and I totally agree that moving program files and amending registry would be a daunting task - so will keep the program files in the ' C ' partition and set up other partitions accordingly

Mel

 

A couple additional thoughts:
1. IMPORTANT -- De-fragment your C drive and get all the free space at the end of the partition before messing with it. I used a 30-day evaluation copy of VoptXP (Google it), to put all the free space at the end of the partition. VoptXP has a clear display of what is where in the partition. I had to make several VoptXP runs (it's fast), to get a couple system files packed tightly in with the rest of the files.
2. IMPORTANT -- backup your data too. I forgot that a destination disk partition had backups on it, before I deleted it. But I had DVD-ROM backups of most of that, too.
3. You may have to poke around in all your programs, to see where they set data locations. Some are friendlier than others. The Opera browser, for example, tells where they all are: Help > About Opera. Internet Explorer has so many hidden data locations, that you will probably never find them all.