I will be replacing the hard drive and reinstalling WindowsXP and all the software on my neighbor’s computer this weekend.

Along with all the MS Office, address books, calendars, yada yada stuff, he also has Poser 5, PhotoshopCS and Maya (the free learning version).

He is pretty adamant that I install the three resource intensive programs (Poser, PS, Maya) first, as that puts them at the beginning of the HD disk.

When I asked him why, he showed me a couple of the “techy” sites that stated programs closer to the start of the disk are accessed faster, and should be the location for graphic/3D/game type programs.

Doesn’t matter a bit to me in which order I install his stuff, but I was just curious if anyone else has heard of this…or is it another one of those “myths” that float around?

Curious SWAMP

Strictly myth - as long as the disk is properly defragmented the Windows prefetch and indexing will allow for fast loads.

Quote - When I asked him why, he showed me a couple of the “techy” sites that stated programs closer to the start of the disk are accessed faster

Technically - I suppose so. BUT 'a program' isn't just a monolithic piece of data, usually. It's all sorts of config, ini, dll and exe files which get scattered all over the place. Installing those programs first in no way guarantees that files are placed optimally on the disk.

In practice, who cares?  Something that will have a much more noticeable effect is defragging the HD regularly - use something like Raxco's Perfect Disk rather than the Windows defragger, if you can afford it, as this will place different file types on the disk optimally.

It will almost certainly make no noticeable difference, but if it makes the guy feel better, go for it. And if he tells you it loads faster, encourage him in this belief. This will make him happier and will make less headaches for you in the long run. If afterward he complains that it didn't make things faster, assure him that newer computers are so fast themselves, that they outrun the software. Again, this will make him happier, and will make your life easier. Anything that a user believes about his computer that makes him happy is a good thing; the truth is totally irrelevant.

Captain Jack

Thanks Guys/Gals for confirming what I was thinking.

SWAMP (who shall never again tell a neighbor how easy it is to install a hard drive)

I'd say he's probably right but I doubt it makes a real difference. Under Win98, the defragger offered an option to optimize the programs you ran most frequently. Windows monitored program useage and maintained a folder called applog. My understanding is that Defrag referenced data in applog to move the most frequently used apps to the fastest part of the disk, usually at the beginning. I did some research and I find no reference to this process for the newer OS versions 200/XP/Vista. Maybe it's just automatic now or quite possibly they decided it didn't improve things enough to be worthwhile. With faster drives etc., I doubt you'ld notice a differnce. I'd be more concerned about where my data files resided that the applications themselves. All in all, it's probably one of those things that was true at one time but been bypassed by technology.

Yup, Im agreeing with Cspear..when you install a program, bits of it goes to different places, {which is why when you uninstall you have all the defragmented areas or rather 'holes'}

Installing hard drives is easy..;) done it for 20 years. Now what you put on them..;)