otwist26
06-27-2004, 11:39 PM
I suppose nothing about Micro$uck should surprise me any more, but I must admit that this one is throwing me for a loop.
A quick background summary:
On the computer in question, I'm using WinXP Pro.
I've got 2 IDE hard drives.
Drive 1 consists of a small system partition and a larger extended data partition.
Drive 2 consists of another extended data partition, plus some free space for copies(backups) of my system partition.
All partitions are NTFS.
I use a nice little program called Ranish Partition Manager to make backups of my system partition. It does this by making 1-to-1 sector-by-sector copies. In this case I make the copies to the free space on the 2nd hard drive. I always make a backup before installng any new software.
SO, here's what happened...
In some cases, I find it faster and more convenient to make the a backup copy, then BOOT to the backup copy partition on the 2nd hard drive (I first mark all other partitions as 'hidden') and install the new software. I do this when I just want to test the new and when the chances are good that I may not want to keep the software installed. This what I did in this case. Should not be a problem booting to another primary partition, right? I mean, lots of people have multile OS's on their system in this manner.
Here come's the "What the F _ _ K".
The software I installed in this case was
1) Trial version of Diskeeper (defrag software)
2) Quick Time Player
Booted to my primary partition on drive 2.
1) Installed Diskeeper. Installation went fine, but could not get software to work (wouldn't defrag anything).
2) Installed Quick Time Player. Worked fine.
After a few minutes, decided I didn't want to mess with Diskeeper any more and gave up.
So I booted back to my normal system partition on drive 1, but after a few hours of use, something disturbing came to my attention...
The installations of software on the other partition had MADE REGISTRY CHANGES to my (then hidden) partition on drive 1 !!!!!!!
WHAT THE F _ _ K ?!?!?!
I won't list all the registry changes I found, but a few examples are:
1) Quick Time added entries to the msconfig startup list
2) Diskeeper added environment variables, logical volume management registry entries, and a tone of other regitry entries that are screwing up the function of the "Computer Management" part of Administrative Tools.
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN ???
Only thing I can think of is that Windows (the Windows Installer I guess) referenced the registry not by using the file system C:\ drive notation but by some more direct means (maybe disk(0)partiton(0) or the like).
Can we not safely have multiple OS's on multiple primary partitions after all???
(As far as I can tell, the registry was the only thing changed in this way. No files, directories etc. were added on drive 1.)
A quick background summary:
On the computer in question, I'm using WinXP Pro.
I've got 2 IDE hard drives.
Drive 1 consists of a small system partition and a larger extended data partition.
Drive 2 consists of another extended data partition, plus some free space for copies(backups) of my system partition.
All partitions are NTFS.
I use a nice little program called Ranish Partition Manager to make backups of my system partition. It does this by making 1-to-1 sector-by-sector copies. In this case I make the copies to the free space on the 2nd hard drive. I always make a backup before installng any new software.
SO, here's what happened...
In some cases, I find it faster and more convenient to make the a backup copy, then BOOT to the backup copy partition on the 2nd hard drive (I first mark all other partitions as 'hidden') and install the new software. I do this when I just want to test the new and when the chances are good that I may not want to keep the software installed. This what I did in this case. Should not be a problem booting to another primary partition, right? I mean, lots of people have multile OS's on their system in this manner.
Here come's the "What the F _ _ K".
The software I installed in this case was
1) Trial version of Diskeeper (defrag software)
2) Quick Time Player
Booted to my primary partition on drive 2.
1) Installed Diskeeper. Installation went fine, but could not get software to work (wouldn't defrag anything).
2) Installed Quick Time Player. Worked fine.
After a few minutes, decided I didn't want to mess with Diskeeper any more and gave up.
So I booted back to my normal system partition on drive 1, but after a few hours of use, something disturbing came to my attention...
The installations of software on the other partition had MADE REGISTRY CHANGES to my (then hidden) partition on drive 1 !!!!!!!
WHAT THE F _ _ K ?!?!?!
I won't list all the registry changes I found, but a few examples are:
1) Quick Time added entries to the msconfig startup list
2) Diskeeper added environment variables, logical volume management registry entries, and a tone of other regitry entries that are screwing up the function of the "Computer Management" part of Administrative Tools.
HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN ???
Only thing I can think of is that Windows (the Windows Installer I guess) referenced the registry not by using the file system C:\ drive notation but by some more direct means (maybe disk(0)partiton(0) or the like).
Can we not safely have multiple OS's on multiple primary partitions after all???
(As far as I can tell, the registry was the only thing changed in this way. No files, directories etc. were added on drive 1.)