Wanting to improve my WinXP custom setup

[mikeymike]

I build computers for customers. I intend to recommend and/or go with Windows XP for the time being, though obviously I should be looking at how Windows Vista is going to change things for me, particularly with regard to the custom Windows setups I do.

With Windows XP, I had a bit of a hacky but workable technique for storing the "Documents and Settings" and "Program Files" (inc. "Common Files") folders on a seperate partition. It very likely isn't the best technique, but how I accomplished this was to start Windows XP Setup off CD, specify a C drive of 4GB and D drive using up the rest of the hard disk. I would have to restart the first stage of setup after specifying the partition layout because D would be E drive initially (because of the CD drive), and then as soon as the graphical stage of setup starts, I would use Shift+F10 to get a command prompt up to format D drive as NTFS, then put the Windows CD back in for a short while, eject it when it stops accessing momentarily, then run my registry file from a CD or floppy (which points Docs/Settings/Program Files at folders on D), and a batch file that creates the folder structure on D for me, and copies the data from the C drive folders to the relevant folders on D, then nukes C:\Program Files, then sets up an NTFS junction pointing C:\Program Files at the relevant folder on D.

I then have to run another script after Windows setup that grabs the remaining files from C:\Documents and Settings to the relevant folder on D drive, nukes the C drive copy, then junctions C:\Documents and Settings to the relevant folder on D.

I would like to improve this system, though I don't have hours and hours to devote to experiment with it. I also want to come up with a similar system for when I start doing Vista installs for customers.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.