Re: New year, clean install, any advantage to having applications on D: instead of C:?

On Jan 7, 12:49 pm, Daniel James <wastebas...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<news:1e101b91-a7c3-4ffc-9a09-5cecee3a3d19@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

Jameshanle...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
But I did stop backuping up to DVDs.

I found it better to backup to hard drive.
For many, many reasons

They both have their place ... and neither is completely reliable. I tend
to regard DVDs as backups and HDD copies as working copies, but I make
both.


Usually I use the HDD working copy. If I am out, then I am either
using Windows CDs , or UBCD, e.t.c. things that one has to boot off of
and do not need a DVD for). And if I want portability, then CDs are
better incase the person does not have a DVD drive.

What advantage do DVDs have over an "external" HDD?

I have heard that, as a rule of thumb, it is good to backup on
different media.. Perhaps incase one media reading facility is down.
Or because - perhaps moreso in the past, media if kept for too long,
has nothing to read it. e.g. 5.25" disks.

<snip>
- It takes time, you have to keep coming back to the machine and
swapping DVDs.

That's one reason that I keep critical and fast-changing data in DVD-sized
partitions. Only one DVD needed to back up.


How often are you buying DVD-R media and backing up your fast changing
data?

I was talking of backup on DVDs, for non fast changing data, and not
weekly. So if backing that up then it would not just be 1 DVD sized
directory. There are many. I don`t do it anymore. You yourself
mention that you have many DVD-sized partitions. Therefore surely you
are swapping DVDs

- DVDs or CDs, are not instantly/transparently accessible. It is good
for portability, taking them to "end users" in the family - in a
techie`s bag. And good for if I really need something.. But not for
frequent access.

They may be good for disaster scenarios..

That's the thing about backups. You hope you *never* need to access them.


What you call a "working copy", I define as a backup too.

I did have a book that used the terms offline and online backup. To
mean how accessible the backup was. But the term offline/online can of
course be misleading - what with the internet

The working copy is for disaster scenarios too. And so is the HDD that
I do not copy to that often, the working copy of the working copy.

It is alot more efficient to do than DVDs.



It's not just reinstalling Windows ... it's reinstalling and then
running update to get the 90-odd hotfixes <snip>

I would slipstream a cd that has it, make an ISO of it, make a few
CDs

I agree that a slipstreamed copy of the OS with all the updates would be
nice to have ... but (unless you know of a more efficient way of doing it)
life is too short to add all those updates. It's worth slipstreaming an SP,
but the 90-odd hotfixes since?

I am not that big on windows updates anyway. What are they for?
securing IE and OE?

All sorts of things. Yes, often patching the leaks in IE and OE (which I
don't use anyway) but also fixing and updating core Windows components that
one does have to use. Ignore them at your peril!

like what? Security ones?

I would think they only apply if you have a service/server running and
allow untrusted IPs to connect.



Better still, I run Windows in a VM (under linux, as it happens, but it
could by under any OS (including another copy of Windows)) and I can
keep a 'virgin' copy of the Windows system ready to restore if needed.
That 'virgin' copy is backed up to DVD, of course.

Currently, I prefer it the other way around (at this stage of linux
and myself)..
Running windows, and keeping "linux" under dhimmitude (with cygwin)

My point was not about Windows/linux, but that one can keep a 'virgin'
installation of an (any) OS in a VM image -- copy it as needed -- and
manage the working environment that way.

I choose to run Windows under linux rather than linux under Windows because
I want to run the less secure OS under the control of the more secure,
rather than vice versa.

is it really *that* transparent that an OS is being run within
another?

Are you using Virtual PC? VMWARE?

I know these things need a full amount of RAM for each OS.. Though
Vista requires alot of RAM too. My fairly quiet fanless laptop only
has 256MB non standard RAM!

And I well and truly screwed myself, in that I damaged the head of a
screw and cannot open it. Infact, somebody pointed out to me. That
should be the origin of the term "i`m screwed".

note- You have lots of great advice, wisdom and info.. I snipped alot
of it just responding to points where I had a response besides "great,
thanks for the info"..



.

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