Vista 64 Ultimate, Should Program Files be moved to seperate parti

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I have Vista 64 Ultimate. In previous windows I kept programfiles in
seperate partion because I heard this was good logic for performance etc. Is
this the case in vista 64? If so how do I do this?

If not should I just increase vista's partition size? I am at 30GB now on a
250 GB WD Cavier Sata II
 
dswofford said:
I have Vista 64 Ultimate. In previous windows I kept programfiles in
seperate partion because I heard this was good logic for performance
etc. Is this the case in vista 64?
Click to expand...


No. It never made much sense in earlier versions of Windows, and it doesn't
make much sense in Vista. Any difference in performance iwill almost
certainly be tiny, but best performance results from having the program
files in the same partition as Windows, thus minimizing head travel to and
from the applications.

Most people who recommend separating the operating system and installed
applications on different partitions recommend it because think that if they
ever have to reinstall Windows, their applications will remain. They are
wrong. Even if your applications are installed on a partition separate from
that the operating system is on, you
can *not* reinstall the operating system without losing the applications.
The reason is that all applications (except for a very occasional
near-trivial one) have entries and pointers to them within Windows, in the
registry and elsewhere. With Windows gone, all those entries get lost, and
the applications get broken. So that benefit goes away.

My view is that most people's partitioning scheme should be based on their
backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image of
the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other
hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by
having all data in a separate partition.

Except for those running multiple operating systems, there is seldom any
benefit to having more than two partitions.
 
No. It never made much sense in earlier versions of Windows, and it doesn't
make much sense in Vista. Any difference in performance iwill almost
certainly be tiny, but best performance results from having the program
files in the same partition as Windows, thus minimizing head travel to and
from the applications.

Most people who recommend separating the operating system and installed
applications on different partitions recommend it because think that if they
ever have to reinstall Windows, their applications will remain. They are
wrong. Even if your applications are installed on a partition separate from
that the operating system is on, you
can *not* reinstall the operating system without losing the applications.
The reason is that all applications (except for a very occasional
near-trivial one) have entries and pointers to them within Windows, in the
registry and elsewhere. With Windows gone, all those entries get lost, and
the applications get broken. So that benefit goes away.

My view is that most people's partitioning scheme should be based on their
backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image of
the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other
hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by
having all data in a separate partition.

Except for those running multiple operating systems, there is seldom any
benefit to having more than two partitions.
Click to expand...

I have a follow up question. Prior to Vista Windows would spend time
doing a partial defrag on the primary partition. If you had a second
partition, say for your My Documents Folder, that partition was
ignored.

With all the whiz bang new self performance tuning, does Vista still
optimize just the partition it resides on, or does it reach out to the
other partitions as well.

I'm asking because I've always perferred to have my documents on a
second partition in case of a virus or some such ugliness.

Thanks for the info.

Gary
 
ncgmac said:
I have a follow up question. Prior to Vista Windows would spend time
doing a partial defrag on the primary partition. If you had a second
partition, say for your My Documents Folder, that partition was
ignored.

With all the whiz bang new self performance tuning, does Vista still
optimize just the partition it resides on, or does it reach out to the
other partitions as well.

I'm asking because I've always perferred to have my documents on a
second partition in case of a virus or some such ugliness.
Click to expand...


I don't know the answer to your question, but I have two points in regard to
your last paragraph:

1. Having your documents on a separate partition, while it often has
advantages for some people, does very little or nothing to protect you
against a virus.

2. Every time I hear about someone who uses his partitioning scheme to
protect his data against *anything*, I assume that he uses that partitioning
scheme instead of a thorough backup scheme. If that's the case, you are
kidding yourself. The *only* real protection for your data is backup.
 
2. Every time I hear about someone who uses his partitioning scheme to
protect his data against *anything*, I assume that he uses that
partitioning scheme instead of a thorough backup scheme. If that's the
case, you are kidding yourself. The *only* real protection for your data
is backup.
Click to expand...

I use a separate partition so I can clean install an OS every few months
without touching my emails (yes I have the message store on a separate
partition) documents or other program data. On machines where I have
a second hard drive, I use that instead of a separate logical partition.

Tom Lake
 
Tom Lake said:
I use a separate partition so I can clean install an OS every few months
without touching my emails (yes I have the message store on a separate
partition) documents or other program data. On machines where I have
a second hard drive, I use that instead of a separate logical partition.

Tom Lake
Click to expand...

When you do a reinstall of Vista, it bundles up your "old" files and moves
them out of harms way before it installs. And no, it does not leave any
residue of the old system.
I used to keep my data on another drive for safety reasons, but after using
Vista, several beta's and RC's and going through the reinstallation process
quite a few times, I'm very confident that my data is secure, residing in
the system partition.
That being said, as Ken said, nothing beats a regular backup routine.
 
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