Want to install 4 os's on one harddrive and have another HDD for apps

[zxcvb]

I will used a large HDD and have each Win OS partiton off and use anither large HDD to put apps,
Questions is do I need to install the apps to each OS and how will they run being installed on 4 Win Os's

 

[Zelmo3]

If you're using four Miscrosoft OSes then you do need to install the apps to each one. Each system will need to make registry settings for the programs and the installers will probably put some DLLs into the Windows system directory.
There may be some exceptions, like Quake 3, Unreal *, and others that are statically linked and don't put anything in the registry.

 

[zxcvb]

should I make the partitions first then install each one

 

[FreakyGuy]

Why would you want to? is what all of us are asking.

 

[zxcvb]

it will be a test machine to test all hardware and software, not for everyday use

 

[MrChad]

Have you looked into Virtual PC or VMware? If all you want to do is test out new hardware/software, virtual machine software would be a lot less painful than four operating systems.

 

[SUOrangeman]

WHY? WHY? WHY?

What is the FREAKING POINT of installing EVERY FREAKING APP on EVERY FREAKING WINDOWS INSTALL on your system? If you NEED to run EVERY FREAKING APP in EVERY WINDOWS INSTALL, why BOTHER with MORE THAN ONE Windows install in the first place?

Now, I run SIX operating systems on my 36GB Raptor, four of which are Windows. Therefore, I could probably offer some pointers. However, I think you really need to evaluate the need to install the same apps in each OS. Sure, I completely understand trying software in one OS before bringing it over to the "everyday-use" OS. I also understand that there are some valuable tools (like WinZip/7-Zip and a good CD burning app) that you will ultimately use in more than one OS. But, will you really need that many comman apps across all Windows installs? Enought to warrant using a separate hard drive just for installing apps?

My Raptor is partitioned as follows:

3GB PRIMARY FreeBSD
2GB PRIMARY (BeOS, if I can ever get it installed; not much luck with Solaris 9 x86 either 🙁)
1GB PRIMARY FAT (shows up as C: in all Windows installs, only used for swap/pagefile/virtual memory and temp files)
50MB EXTENDED LOGICAL Linux /boot
2GB EXTENDED LOGICAL (BeOS, freeing up other reserved space ... if I can ever get the darn thing to install)
2GB EXTENDED LOGICAL NTFS (shows up as D: in Win2K3 Server, not shown in any other Windows install)
4GB EXTENDED LOGICAL NTFS (shows up as D: in WinXP Pro, not shown in any other Windows install)
2GB EXTENDED LOGICAL NTFS (shows up as D: in Win2K Pro, not shown in any other Windows install)
2GB EXTENDED LOGICAL NTFS (shows up as P: in WinXP Pro for personal files, not shown in any other Windows install)
2GB EXTENDED LOGICAL FAT32 (shows up as D: in WinME, not shown in any other Windows install)
(rest for Linux, and a FAT32 volume for games, I think)

I think I laid out all of the partitions as Linux volumes initially, so I could easily get the Windows drive letters I wanted. Then I first converted C: to FAT and the WinME D: to FAT32. Installed WinME.

Next, I converted the Win2K Pro volume to NTFS and installed it. Repeated for WinXP, and finallyWin2K3. This allowed me to always have D: as the OS volume, and I only had to use the boot loaders provided by Microsoft (NT Loader). Non-MS OSes can be installed at any time, as they at least give you the option to NOT overwrite the MBR (which you probably should not overwrite unless you are 125% certain).

-SUO

 

[zxcvb]

I do repair on hardware, alot of people still use older Windows OS's, many older hardware makers did not make any drivers for XP,
It will be one 80gb harddrive one partition 4 and other harddrive for data

 

[Aleksandar]

A lot of programs can be installed and working like this.
install them in the same folder from all the 4 os
apps like microsoft office and so on maby will now workk like this but a lot are

 

[SUOrangeman]

I never meant to imply that what the original author intentions were impossible. To me, they just don't make much sense. i believe that you will eventually find that one OS rules the roost. That's the one that should have all the apps. All the other OSes can run the trial/testing apps before migrating to the main OS.

Ask yourself this: Do you really need to run Word or Excel in *all* of your OSes?

-SUO

 

[Topher]

Want to install 4 os's on one harddrive

Then you'll want to check this out.

 

[Booty]

Originally posted by: zxcvb
I do repair on hardware, alot of people still use older Windows OS's, many older hardware makers did not make any drivers for XP,
It will be one 80gb harddrive one partition 4 and other harddrive for data

You do repair on hardware, as in actually soldering components and so-forth? So you need the legacy OS's to install the hardware to verify that it's working? I guess I can see that... in that case, though, I don't see why you'd need many actual programs installed... just the OS, maybe a file compression utility, and some diagnostic software to do stress-testing or whatever.

If you have something else in mind, you might want to clarify, but if I'm understanding correctly then I don't really see a reason to have an apps partition, even if you could find a way to make it work.