Hi Guys:
XP Home SP2

Here's the situation
160GB HDD, broken in 3 parts, 4GB, 78GB, 78GB.
Installed XP on the 4GB partition.

Began installing the rest of my program files onto one of the 78G partitions.
While installing I recieved a message telling me I was running out of disc space. I checked, and to my suprise, the 4GB partiton is nearly full. I really don't feel like repartitioning.

What I'd really like to do is use the 4GB partition for system boot only.
I'm not sure what I can and cannot move out of the "C" (4GB) drive, i.e., "Program Files", "Windows", "Documents and Settings". I already tried moving "Docs and Settings" to one of the 78G parts and was denied by OS.

What to do????

Thanks in advance for any thoughs and/or suggestions

Well, I'm not sure how difficult it might be to clean things up and reclaim some disk space, but I know you cannot move WINDOWS, Program Files, Documents and settings, WINNT (if used instead of Windows) and any of theindividual files Windows places in the root of C: drive.

I recommend that you hold "Windows" & "Program Files" on the C: partition and make it big enough to have some spare space.
I had thought from what others have said that WinXP needs about 5 GB
[my Win98SE + 60 prog's uses only 1.96 GB].
Here's how I moved my stuff. Not sure if XP can be done this way:
a. My Documents. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
b. E-mails for all identities. [use the email client to move their home]
c. Internet Explorer Favourites. [Use “TweakUI” to move their home]
d. Temporary Internet Files. [use the browser (Internet Explorer) to move them]
e. Re-home the Windows Address Book as shown here http://tinyurl.com/24q6l . Use the key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WAB\WAB4\Wab FileName” to specify its new address. [Its normal home address [in Win98] is C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book\(the name you gave your PC).WAB]
This kind of stuff is best kept on a [small, perhaps old] separate physical HDD.

Most of that should work as far as I know, although XP may do things a lot different in some cases than win98. I just installed XP with SP1 on a machine, with the OS and Firefox, Adaware and AVG it claimed around 1.6GB. I would have thought 4GB would work for XP, but you might find out in the end you'll have no choice but to give it a larger partition. It's too late now, of course, and may not be what you want to hear, but I think something like 5-8GB might be a more reasonable size for XP.

The problem you'll have is when you install programs. You can install other software to a different partition, like word processors, games, picture editing software etc, but most or all still want to drop files in Program Files or the System 32 folder on C: so you end up with your C: partition getting larger anyway. C: is where a;; the DLL's and shared files are, so at the least, the programs have to put a link somewhere on C: to tell it where the needed files are to be found or link to the WIndows system or shared files needed.

Over time the registry also grows, after instaling and uninstalling software, since not many programs remove all the registry entries they create, same for hardware changes. Norton, Netscape and AOL are the worst I know of, all leave something like 200 registry entries sitting there. Uninstalling Norton and installing another antivirus [AVG] crashed my win98 machine so bad I was forced to reinstall, because of leftover registry entries. Over time the registry by itself can grow to over 1GB, then temp and temporary Internet files can get huge as well. That takes a long time though, something that might be an issue 2 years down the road, not right away.

My copy of XP with SP2 along with a few programs and some storage is just under 6 gigs. There's about 1 gig of data that I could remove by relocating onto another partition if I wanted to.

I recommend between 10 and 20 gigs for an XP partition. 10 if you keep all the programs that are willing to reside elsewhere onto their own partition, 20 if you plan to install all programs onto the same one as the os. Remember when installing softwares onto their own partition that it be on the same drive as the os.

Your option to modify your existing setup is either to start from scratch or use a partition manager such as Ranish PM or XOSL.