Re: Windows registry cleanup tools

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Harry Binswanger wrote:
> Speaking of that. In re-installing XP, you have to format the disk then
> reinstall all your apps right? Is this the penalty for having one large
> C: drive with everything on it?
And Jordan replied:

> See now why it makes sense to keep the OS on one
> partition and put the apps on another? It allows you
> to re-install the OS and keep the apps (relatively)
> unaffected. But you must plan ahead and document what
> apps you install. You must keep backups of the last
> clean and functional registry, you must know (i.e.,
> document) which apps were registered (including
> service packs and updates), and you must keep the
> backup reg files separate from the boot partition
> (which gets erased when you re-install the OS)
The only problem with which (apart from the fact that
it's more labor than it's worth; I have so few Windows
apps that it's easier to just reinstall them) is that
an awful lot of apps (esp. WordPerfect and all other
Corel products) are bound and determined to go into
c:\Program Files; if you don't put them there, they put
some of their components there anyway and then
duplicate them where you wanted them, resulting in a
very unstable system. Separate partitions for data, DOS
apps, and other things, yes, but not Windows native
ones. IMO.


But you SHOULD partition your drive. At the very least,
EVERYONE, no matter how much a willing slave of
Redmond, should have a separate data partition. Much
easier to backup. Anyone running Xy and any other DOS
apps should ideally have a separate partition for DOS
apps. Lately I have started keeping a small (1.5 G)
partition to which I copy the Windows CD and all driver
files, so that when I'm installing anything, if the
Windows setup files are needed, they're right there and
I don't have to go rummaging for the CD; likewise if I
have to reinstall. And I keep a partition for downloads
and assembling files to burn to CD.

Apropos of partitioning, can anyone confirm that 2K and
XP can be installed in partitions created (but not
formatted, if you want NTFS) using Win98 fdisk? I did
it on the box I upgraded to 2K (and it was a clean
install, not an upgrade, something I avoid like the
plague). Because if you're doing it from scratch on
bare iron, fdisk is much simpler than the NT
equivalents (whose names escape me at the moment).

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx