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Dual-Boot (XP/7) Data Sharing
First I'd like to say hello all, this seemed like a good forum to post my question. Lots of good info and intelligent people here, so I took the time to register so I can figure out if what I'm doing is gonna mess up anything if I attempt it.
My computer is set up to dual boot WinXP and Win7, mostly for gaming compatibility purposes, but I love both OS equally to be honest. I'm trying to make both operating systems basically store and retrieve as much data from the same places as possible without destroying anything. For example, this is what I did so far...
- All drive letters are identical in both OS, to ensure maximum compatibility if running the same program on either OS.
- I have a shared Program Files folder which contains any programs that both OS can run and aren't entirely dependent on the correct registry keys on my "shared" hard drive, separate from my dual partitioned with the operating systems. Also on this drive is where I install my games and just about anything else both OS will use.
- Both OS use most of the same User's folder. I consider 7 my 'main OS', so my XP installation uses Win7's Documents, Music, Downloads, Favorites, and Videos folder, as well as a couple other of the personal settings folder. This works great for my games, both OS share most of my save game files so I can load a game in either OS and there's my progress.
So far everything is working great, but I want to take one final leap and I'm not sure of the effect, mostly because I'm not educated enough about program application data and what kinds of settings they store. Programs seem to store personal data in folders known as "Application Data" in XP and "AppData" in 7. From my understanding, this is pretty much how it goes... (XP Folder then Win7 Equivalent)
x:\Documents and Settings\id\Application Data == x:\Users\id\AppData\Roaming
and
x:\Documents and Settings\id\Local Settings\Application Data == x:\Users\id\AppData\Local
I know how to change where XP stores application data via the registry, what I'm wondering is will there be some kind of negative effect in doing so? Will it mess up my program data? This would be the last thing I can think of doing to minimize the amount of wasteful data stored between my operating systems. From what I'm seeing the programs I happened to install on both have exactly the same AppData in both folders.