Comments on: Computer Drama http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/2008/05/12/computer-drama/ What you get when my brain crashes... Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:10:04 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Keithius http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/2008/05/12/computer-drama/comment-page-1/#comment-113460 Keithius Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:55:52 +0000 http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/?p=1108#comment-113460 Yes, that's true, I could install *new* programs to the new hard drive - in fact, my last computer did exactly that (it had 3 hard drives!). But, I can say from experience that it's a bit of a pain sometimes - some freeware or badly written installer programs won't work if you install them anywhere but "C:\Program Files\". And of course that doesn't do anything for the programs that are *already* installed on your C: drive. Without being able to move them over to the new drive, I wouldn't free up much space, so that's why I didn't do it. Also, in my case, my "documents and settings" folder was taking up WAY more space than the entire "Program Files" folder - so I just ended up leaving it where it was; I'm not fussed. Yes, that’s true, I could install *new* programs to the new hard drive – in fact, my last computer did exactly that (it had 3 hard drives!). But, I can say from experience that it’s a bit of a pain sometimes – some freeware or badly written installer programs won’t work if you install them anywhere but “C:\Program Files\”.

And of course that doesn’t do anything for the programs that are *already* installed on your C: drive. Without being able to move them over to the new drive, I wouldn’t free up much space, so that’s why I didn’t do it.

Also, in my case, my “documents and settings” folder was taking up WAY more space than the entire “Program Files” folder – so I just ended up leaving it where it was; I’m not fussed.

]]> By: Lupin http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/2008/05/12/computer-drama/comment-page-1/#comment-113439 Lupin Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:27:55 +0000 http://www.starkeith.net/coredump/?p=1108#comment-113439 You may not move your program files folder to another partition, but you can install you programs in another folder, right? I created an empty folder "Applications", whereto I install all programs. The first reason is that I like to sort applications in categories. So I use subfolders like Network, Drivers, System, Multimedia aso. That's because I use some programs that don't have an installer at all (many small system tools or useabilty enhancements) or don't provide shortcuts in the startmenu, because there's nothing to start (e. g. codecs). They are easier to manage if sorted. With this I also got around the annoyance of the undeleteable folder in the "program files" directory. I don't see them anymore ;-). I don't know how many of them are present on an english XP (I'm using a german XP), but there are 30 folders I definitly didn't put there myself (Messenger, MSN, movie maker, outlook express, windows media player). Ok, 5 or 6 folders could be deleted, but they belong to programs that didn't me let to choose an install path (mainly M$! programs and drivers). I contrast I have just 7 categories for my programs. So it's really tidied up. ;-) Another advantage came only after I installed a new 320GB drive. I could simply move the contents of the applications folder to a new partition and mount it in the original place. I even have a mounted partition in the mounted partition only for a cygwin installation. It had so many small files (and by many I mean approx. half of all files on the drive) that after every update of cygwin my harddisk looked like it was treated with a shotgun: quite fragmented. So on the system drive there are only windows and the stubborn programs left (I also moved "documents and settings" to its own partition). Moving the programs to their own partition never caused any problems in two years (the docs folder is a little bit trickier). Starting a defragger is barely needed at all. You may not move your program files folder to another partition, but you can install you programs in another folder, right? I created an empty folder “Applications”, whereto I install all programs. The first reason is that I like to sort applications in categories. So I use subfolders like Network, Drivers, System, Multimedia aso. That’s because I use some programs that don’t have an installer at all (many small system tools or useabilty enhancements) or don’t provide shortcuts in the startmenu, because there’s nothing to start (e. g. codecs). They are easier to manage if sorted.

With this I also got around the annoyance of the undeleteable folder in the “program files” directory. I don’t see them anymore ;-) . I don’t know how many of them are present on an english XP (I’m using a german XP), but there are 30 folders I definitly didn’t put there myself (Messenger, MSN, movie maker, outlook express, windows media player). Ok, 5 or 6 folders could be deleted, but they belong to programs that didn’t me let to choose an install path (mainly M$! programs and drivers). I contrast I have just 7 categories for my programs. So it’s really tidied up. ;-)

Another advantage came only after I installed a new 320GB drive. I could simply move the contents of the applications folder to a new partition and mount it in the original place. I even have a mounted partition in the mounted partition only for a cygwin installation. It had so many small files (and by many I mean approx. half of all files on the drive) that after every update of cygwin my harddisk looked like it was treated with a shotgun: quite fragmented. So on the system drive there are only windows and the stubborn programs left (I also moved “documents and settings” to its own partition). Moving the programs to their own partition never caused any problems in two years (the docs folder is a little bit trickier). Starting a defragger is barely needed at all.

]]>