At the risk of dating myself (”I’m 39, I’m not old”), I’ve been installing operating systems for a long time. I’ve been installing, re-installing, scripting installing, etc. Windows since 3.11 and I know what I’m doing. Er, at least I thought I knew what I was doing. What I didn’t realize is that Microsoft had changed some of the rules. But before that, let’s cover some background.

If you frequently re-install your OS, you have probably come up with a few shortcuts and customizations that help you when you go back and do it again, and again, and again… For Windows XP, I always create a C: partition for the OS and applications, and a D: partition for all my data files, downloads, etc. By segregating OS from data, I can re-install XP at my leisure with no risk to my data. To keep my data on the D: partition, I use TweakUI to redirect My Documents, Desktop, Favorites, My Pictures, My Music, etc. over to the D: drive so I don’t have to move or copy data back and forth. When I re-install XP, I redirect those system folders and I’m good to go.

At this point, you might have figured out where I am heading with this… Read the rest of this entry »