XP on other than C:
Friday, August 17, 2007 at 6:23 am
Windows Me Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by DNA
(552 messages posted)
"..why would anyone want to install XP on a FAT32 partition?"
Even though I put my personal XP installs on NTFS partitions, there would be one
VERY good reason that some would want to put NT5 (2000/XP) on a FAT32 partition.
All files on that partition would be accessible from Win9x. If the NT partition got
any malware files that can't be removed while NT is running, you could boot up in
9x and remove any files you wanted to from the NT FAT32 partition! Yes, if
you didn't know what you were doing, you could kill the NT install, but if you did
know what files to remove (via HijackThis, Malware forums, Google, etc.), this would
be a blessing!
I built a dual-boot Win98/Win2000 computer for an auto repair shop (it can run just
about any DOS or Windows auto diagnostic program!), and they asked me to install
Win2K on a FAT32 partition. This computer is in their main office, so user access
is physically restriced.
"Since XP will live on virtual drive D (or whatever), will this create problems for
software expecting the root directory to be C: ?"
Since I personally have only run XP on drive letters other than C: (since
XP came out in late 2001!), I can say that I have not found this to be much of a
problem at all. Virtually all Windows program installers follow the registry's default
Program Files location, which will be (drive letter the OS is on):\Program Files.
Minor niggles: When you uninstall Lavasoft Ad-Aware from any location other than
"C:", if you also have it installed on the O.S. on "C:", it will 'find' a 'previous
version' install on C: and offer to uninstall it, after it's uninstalled the version
on (drive letter where it was).
nVidia also puts its NT video driver backup files by default on "C:\NVIDIA\Win2KXP\(version
number)", even though the main program installer will always install on the correct
O.S. drive letter by default. You can change the location for the video driver backup
files when it comes up on the dialog box.
Any DOS programs, you would likely want to run them from C: anyway (in a DOS window,
or real-mode, as applicable)
Even if you had some older (Win 3.1 vintage?) program whose installer didn't check
the registry and the install location default is C:, you should be able to change
the location manually during the install.
So, yes, it never hurts to check the dialog boxes to see where a program is going
to be installed at, but even if you have only one O.S. on C:, it's still a good idea
to look!
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Athlon 1.1 - 768 MB RAM = 98SE & XP Home
Athlon 3000+ 64 - 1024 MB RAM = 98SE (@768 MB RAM) & XP Pro
IBM ThinkPad PIII 900 - 384 MB RAM = 98SE & XP Pro SP2
Windows 2000 Server in the basement
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