Partition question????

[Mashed Potato]

One partittion is 40 gigs and the other is....well the size doesn't matter (or so they say)...my question is if I were to do a clean install on the os partition, can I just delete the application folders without any problems or should I uninstall them individually? Will they pretty much just be folders after the new os is installed? Thank you up front.

-Mashed

 

[DaiShan]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to do, but why don't you just format the entire drive and start over with one partition?

 

[Mashed Potato]

i want to keep the media and other valuables. I only want to delete the apps. I do two partitions because if something goes wrong with the os, I don't have to back up my files time after time. It is just easier to format the one without popping in my backup dvds (13 of them). When apps are installed files are placed in different places, correct? (registry?) If I deleted the program folders without installing, there would be files that are still associated with the program right? So my question is, if the os partition is gone are the folders basically just information folders without those files?

 

[DaiShan]

*Most* Windows programs write information to the registry, the system folder etc. These programs would no longer work properly if you re-installed the OS. You would be fine to delete these folders.

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: Mashed Potato
i want to keep the media and other valuables. I only want to delete the apps. I do two partitions because if something goes wrong with the os, I don't have to back up my files time after time. It is just easier to format the one without popping in my backup dvds (13 of them). When apps are installed files are placed in different places, correct? (registry?) If I deleted the program folders without installing, there would be files that are still associated with the program right? So my question is, if the os partition is gone are the folders basically just information folders without those files?

This is how ALL users should configure their hard drives, nice work. I've been preaching data partitions for 15 years now. If you have one giant C: drive, you're just asking for trouble!

When you install an app, it puts files in c:\program files\app name and often in c:\windows and/or c:\windows\system32, it will also write data to the registry.