Dual Boot questions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ben Hardy
  • Start date Start date
B

Ben Hardy

I needed to re-install XP Home because despite what advice I've been given
here by some, it DOES slow down over time, without any detectable trace of
scumware present.
My solution was to install another XP on a different partition. This works
fine - I can now start and use InstallOld or InstallNew OK. The reason for
doing this was so that I can gradually migrate my stuff from the old to the
new without any downtime, then when InstallNew is complete, delete
InstallOld.
And so to the question. Because (I assume) I must have originally made my
stuff on InstallOld private, I am unable to see things such as My Documents
etc from InstallNew. Now, I assume that if I just copy the contents of
InstallOld's 'My Documents' and all the rest of the stuff to
differently-named folders I should then be able to access them from
InstallNew. Is there any other way to do this at a stroke. Basically, I'd
like to have access to everything on InstallOld from InstallNew. Any
suggestions?
 
Hi Ben,

Getting "access denied", huh? You need to take ownership of them. For a
WinXP Home system, you must restart in safe mode and logon as administrator.
Right-click the folder, select properties. Go to the security tab and click
advanced. You can take control of the folders on the owner tab. More details
here:

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP [Q308421]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

How to start in Safe mode:
http://www.rickrogers.org/fixes.htm#Safe mode

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Excellent news! Thankyou very much. I knew there was a way.

Rick "Nutcase" Rogers said:
Hi Ben,

Getting "access denied", huh? You need to take ownership of them. For a
WinXP Home system, you must restart in safe mode and logon as
administrator. Right-click the folder, select properties. Go to the
security tab and click advanced. You can take control of the folders on
the owner tab. More details here:

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP [Q308421]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

How to start in Safe mode:
http://www.rickrogers.org/fixes.htm#Safe mode

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

Ben Hardy said:
I needed to re-install XP Home because despite what advice I've been given
here by some, it DOES slow down over time, without any detectable trace
of scumware present.
My solution was to install another XP on a different partition. This
works fine - I can now start and use InstallOld or InstallNew OK. The
reason for doing this was so that I can gradually migrate my stuff from
the old to the new without any downtime, then when InstallNew is
complete, delete InstallOld.
And so to the question. Because (I assume) I must have originally made my
stuff on InstallOld private, I am unable to see things such as My
Documents etc from InstallNew. Now, I assume that if I just copy the
contents of InstallOld's 'My Documents' and all the rest of the stuff to
differently-named folders I should then be able to access them from
InstallNew. Is there any other way to do this at a stroke. Basically, I'd
like to have access to everything on InstallOld from InstallNew. Any
suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ben said:
I needed to re-install XP Home because despite what advice I've been
given here by some, it DOES slow down over time, without any
detectable trace of scumware present.
Click to expand...


No it doesn't. Same installation up 2 years - no slowing down at all. Sounds
to me like someone doesn't know how to properly maintain their system. When
was the last time you defragmented - or ran disk clean up?
My solution was to install another XP on a different partition. This
works fine - I can now start and use InstallOld or InstallNew OK. The
reason for doing this was so that I can gradually migrate my stuff
from the old to the new without any downtime, then when InstallNew is
complete, delete InstallOld.
And so to the question. Because (I assume) I must have originally
made my stuff on InstallOld private, I am unable to see things such
as My Documents etc from InstallNew. Now, I assume that if I just
copy the contents of InstallOld's 'My Documents' and all the rest of
the stuff to differently-named folders I should then be able to
access them from InstallNew. Is there any other way to do this at a
stroke. Basically, I'd like to have access to everything on
InstallOld from InstallNew. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

If you encrypted the data you're buggered, basically - Windows generates a
new encryption key on every installation. Assuming you merely made the files
private, search the help and support centre (you need to be online) for
"take ownership" - click the knowledge base tab, and it's the 4th one down.
 
Oh no, here we go again.
My system has been defragged, disc-cleaned and CHKDSKed weekly. Similarly I
run AdAware, Spybot S & D etc regularly and have used HighjackThis,
CWShredder, TuneUp Utilities 2004 & MS Baseline Security Analyzer and many
others in an attempt to avoid/solve problems.
I've tried numerous Reg Cleaners (I'v yet to find one that works - i.e.
Uninstall some software - search Registry to discover leftovers still
there - run any Reg Cleaner you care to mention - search Registry -
leftovers still there!). Yes, my AV software is up to date as is my
Firewall. All Windows Updates are installed as soon as available.
I have numerous friends and colleagues, (plus other contributors to this and
other groups) many are similarly fastidious, and they all agree that the
difference in speed between a newly installed XP and one that's been running
for a year or more is VERY noticeable, especially in booting up.
Now, I don't know what you do with your system - maybe you install a just
few programs that you use regularly and apart from updates, you may not
install, evaluate and un-install any others, In that scenario I'm prepared
to believe that your system speed doesn't noticeably change. On mine, at the
last count, according to 'Add/Remove Programs' I had 80+ apps installed.
Considering how they all add stuff to the Registry and how, even after
de-installation, those Reg entries remain, plus they are bound to create
numerous File Associations etc etc, maybe the number of Fonts installed make
a difference I don't know. What I do know is that my InstallNew is far and
away faster than my InstallOld - OK, so far I haven't re-installed all my
Apps on InstallNew so maybe that's an unfair comparison but according to
you, it will make no difference at all.
Simply because YOUR system doesn't appear to slow down, in no way proves
that mine and many other's systems don't!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Microsoft basher. Far from it, I've tried
other OSs but in my opinion MS is best! It's not perfect of course and my
comments here are merely an attempt to discover the cause/solution of a
problem that I and many others genuinely experience.
Your adamant opinion that such a problem doesn't exist is of little help.
 
Ben, I asked this (slow boot/close) question not too long ago. If you are a
single user, it's possible to avoid the Welcome/Log-on screen and have XP
log you on without input (saves time) - various tweak-type utilities set
this up, and also offer other settings changes to speed boot-up and make XP
more efficient.

Another helpful bit of advice (from MVP, forget which, so many are helpful,
here) was that saving stuff in XP's pre-installed directories (My documents,
My Music and the like) results in considerable slowdown when shutting down.
These folders are part of the "personal" data saved to the logged-on user's
profile - can amount to a huge "save" file (over 1GB in my case).

For what it's worth (as a private user with no particular training, just
experience) I had to re-install XP just once - about 30 months ago. My
current start-up time is about 30 seconds max, closedown, about 2 mins -
that's after over 2 years continuous daily use.

I would not contemplate doing what you've done, because your "installOld"
must inevitably be on yr C: - to try at a later stage (your description) to
migrate "old" to "new" (assume partition D:) then make D: your one-and-only,
then transfer/merge it back to C:\ - seems to me a recipe for potential
disaster, since XP critical settings on C: would be forced by PM (or
whatever your chosen partition tool is) rather than optimised by clean
install of XP.

Better, surely, to clean up C:\XP either by fresh install or repair install,
(having first run every AV/malware/adware tool possible, and derfragged,
then add updates, then tweaks, to get back to a viable (fast) OS.

You can't see your "InstallOld" personal files in "InstallNew" 'cos in order
to see them you have to be logged on - user "Ben" in "InstallOld" is a
different user to "Ben" in "InstallNew". the "personal settings" file saved
at closedown, mentioned earlier. Only way you can see them in both OS's is
to transfer them to a non-personal directory NOT a subfolder under
"Documents and Settings".

Hope this helps ! Sincerely, Len
 
Salut/Hi Frank Saunders, MS-MVP,

le/on Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:33:12 -0600, tu disais/you said:-
Most sensible people ignore Sarah.
Click to expand...

Hey, that's the best advice I've seen from you all day!
 
Len Dolby said:
Ben, I asked this (slow boot/close) question not too long ago. If you are
a single user, it's possible to avoid the Welcome/Log-on screen and have
XP log you on without input (saves time) - various tweak-type utilities
set this up, and also offer other settings changes to speed boot-up and
make XP more efficient.
Click to expand...

Thanks Len. But does that have any detrimental effect on security? I know
it's not best practice but I always log on as
an Administrator (far more convenient) since I'm pretty confident that the
security measures in place here
protect me.
Another helpful bit of advice (from MVP, forget which, so many are
helpful, here) was that saving stuff in XP's pre-installed directories (My
documents, My Music and the like) results in considerable slowdown when
shutting down. These folders are part of the "personal" data saved to the
logged-on user's profile - can amount to a huge "save" file (over 1GB in
my case).
Click to expand...

Mmm.. I'll try that. I must admit that my 'My Docs' is huge.
I would not contemplate doing what you've done, because your "installOld"
must inevitably be on yr C: - to try at a later stage (your description)
to migrate "old" to "new" (assume partition D:) then make D: your
one-and-only, then transfer/merge it back to C:\ - seems to me a recipe
for potential disaster, since XP critical settings on C: would be forced
by PM (or whatever your chosen partition tool is) rather than optimised by
clean install of XP.
Click to expand...

Well, I had 2 partitions already set up. InstallOld was on D: and the
InstallNew is on C:
The reason I decided to set up a temporary Dual Boot was to allow me to
continue working with no downtime
so that when I have spare time I can gradually uninstall apps on InstallOld
and re-install them on InstallNew.
In the past when I've done a total re-install of XP I've found that it can
take many hours if not days to get my system up
& running the way I want, which means I can't do work until it's done. Also,
in past re-installations, even though
I take care to back up everything I find that there's often something I
lose.
So far this Dual Boot thing is working well - I've eventually managed to
access and transfer all data so far and I can still do work
even though I may have to boot to either installation.
When I finally get InstallNew how I want it, I'll simply delete the entire
InstallOld Windows folder on D: and that will be it.
Suffice it to say, InstallNew is booting and running far faster than
InstallOld, so for me this turning out to be a worthy solution.

Thanks for your suggestions

Ben
 
Ben - have added in comments as appropriate

Ben Hardy said:
Thanks Len. But does that have any detrimental effect on security? I know
it's not best practice but I always log on as
an Administrator (far more convenient) since I'm pretty confident that the
security measures in place here
protect me.
Click to expand...

I have AVG, XP firewall, Spyblaster, AdAware, PCBUGDOCTOR - automatic
updates.
There's nothing yet got through without being trapped (and I occasionally
run an independant on-line check just to be sure - nothing ever found to
date). Not sure about logging on as Administrator - my system tweaked to
open my personal settings, no log-in - and when I first set it up, I have
full rights. (there's no other account to go to!) Ineffect, it's the same as
logging on as administrator, I think (same effect).
Mmm.. I'll try that. I must admit that my 'My Docs' is huge.


Well, I had 2 partitions already set up. InstallOld was on D: and the
InstallNew is on C:
Click to expand...

I understood "oldXP" to be on C; since your post gave the order "old" and
"new" (logically would be C: and D:) - if "New" is already on C: then surely
the simplest thing to do would be just Format D: when the "Old" boot is no
longer required. Simple matter then just to delete the partition (merge C:
and D:) in Partition Magic (having first done the housekeeping and defragged
C:). You would also have to do a registry clean-up, since there would be
many invalid entries pointing to D:
You could try(then buy) Tuneup Utilities 2004 - superb toolkit (among its
many benefits is continuous background defrag) which includes several
utilities worth having - includes Registry clean-up tools - in my view far
better than Norton Utilities.
Suffice it to say, InstallNew is booting and running far faster than
InstallOld, so for me this turning out to be a worthy solution.
Click to expand...

Course it does! it doesn't (yet) contain the full volume of user data, 'cos
it's not yet fully loaded with apps and associated user data. Unless you
take corrective/preventative measures, as the New system fills up, so it
will slow down too. My system now takes 30 seconds to boot (was >3 minutes)
and about 2 mins to shut down (was over 4) but must admit to not having
cleared "My Docs" folder content (>1Gb) to more effective non-personal
folders.
Thanks for your suggestions
Click to expand...

You're very welcome! Glad you find them useful. Len
 
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