Foolestroupe -

XP won't actually have a problem with programs installed outside the primary partition, but unlike older Win versions it will probably put the .dll and other control files it needs in its program folder regardless of where you put the executables and data files for the program. This means that it will be continually flipping back and forth between partitions, and performance may be slightly affected. In some cases it may put the .dll with the program files, but make copies of them in the primary partition for use while the program runs.

One of the difficult things to grasp, if you're accustomed to older Windows versions, is that XP almost never suffers the same kind of crashes or disk corruptions we all saw with the old ones. Unless you do something ... (we'll avoid saying stupid) ... to cause it, XP should never need all those reloads.

The second old habit that's hard to break is using all those handy "utility" programs you've probably acquired with Win98. WinXP has built in solutions to nearly every problem you're likely to encounter, and if you use XP's fixes FIRST you're unlikely to need anything other than AV and firewall for "utility programs."

I would certainly recommend that you keep data files separated from program files where possible, just to simplify data backup. You can do that with separate partitions or just use folders in one. Program backups should be unnecessary, and are mostly useless since you can rarely restore just by copying them out of backup, and you should always have your installation disks where you can find them.

If you're more comfortable with multiple partitions, then there's no particular reason you shouldn't go that way, but after using XP for nearly 4 years I see no real reason, with XP, why it's needed; and I suspect that eventually you'll find it more practical to use fewer.

John