Custom Install/Docs & Settings/Prog Files location questions

[smilejack1]

I'll be reinstalling Win XP soon. I've partitioned my hard drive and put my data on D: and will be installing Windows on C:. I'm doing this in part so I can make a drive image of the fresh installation and copy it back to the system partition every 6 months or so when Windows starts slowing down, thereby avoiding having to re-install everything after a reformat.

My question regards the pros and cons of doing a custom installation so that either the Documents & Settings folder, the Program Files folder, or both are on the data partition instead of the system partition. Actually, I should rephrase that, as the pros are rather obvious - not having to backup and recover all the data in those folders if I have to/choose to reformat.

I'm wondering what the potential downsides are. For instance, if I have an app installed when I make the drive image of my system partition, update the app sometime thereafter, and then put the old drive image back on the system partition, will I run the risk of creating some type of conflict which will cause me many headaches? Are there other potential risks involved with separating Docs & Sets or Prog Files from the system files?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated...

[JedMeister]

I think having Docs & Settings on a separate partition is a good idea. Having your system temp directories and pagefile on different partition is probably a good idea too as you won't want to waste image space on stuff like that.

As for the program files directory, having that on a separate partition seems like a silly idea to me. That is unless you're going to backup and restore the registry at the same time as you restore your image, which sort of half defeats the purpose of restoring an image (as you'll be restoring a potentially gunked up registry)! Some of your updated programs may work, others may not (as they will rely on updated registry info as well as updated data in Program Files).

If you really want to run with this plan, then my suggestion would be to keep copies of all the .exes of the updates and new progs you install, then when you restore your old image, update all your progs and reinstall any new ones, reinstall any MS updates and then take a new image (ready for the next time you restore an image). This will keep the image more up to date and mean less work required to get you back to where you were prior to your last image restore (less any unrequired gunk).

To be honest though it sounds like a lot of work to me. I prefer a clean install every 2 yrs or so.

Edited August 6, 2008 by JedMeister