Setting an SSD as new Gaming OS?

AndrosForever

I've had an SSD for a while now but never tried installing a bootable OS on it, but yesterday I felt like taking the venture.

I installed Windows 7 on it and booted off the SSD (leaving my HDD and my main OS installation intact).

The boot time was phenomenal and Windows started in a few seconds. My Windows Index score for HDD performance went up from 5.9/7.9 to 7.5/7.9 and it was very noticeable when opening folders and web browsing with Firefox. Now I booted off my HDD because I have all my installations and Firefox preferences set up here.

Gaming was about the same, with Skyrim booting as fast as always off my SSD and with little to no loading times. And Skyrim is one of those few games that actually DO benefit gameplay wise from being installed on an SSD, especially in outside areas where the world is constantly being loaded. Makes gameplay much smoother. Other games that preload worlds don't get that benefit of an SSD and are fine installed on an HDD.

Only thing keeping me from transfering permanently to my SSD OS is losing all my application/game installations and registry information, as well as my Firefox browsing history/bookmarks etc that I have set up over the years.

Wonder if anyone knows of a way that I could transfer all those registry/application and game installations and possibly all the shortcuts I have set up from my HDD Windows 7 installation to my SSD Windows 7 installation? I'd like to keep my applications and games installed on the HDD as my SSD is only 64 gigs. Between the 20 gig OS, Firefox, Skyrim and maybe another couple of games I want nothing else installed on the SSD, maintaining everything else installed on the HDD.

Firepac · 04-22-2012, 20:24 | posts: 34 | Location: Queens, NY

Why would you get a SSD and not make it your bootable drive in the first place? Anyway there are hard drive cloning software out there that you can use like Clonezilla. You're probably better off just doing a fresh install though.

zimzoid · 04-22-2012, 20:47 | posts: 612 | Location: New Zealand

Save the user folder to your hdd, fresh install the os to that ssd, copy the firefox folder from within the saved user folder, copy this to the new user folder on the ssd you should have your firefox bookmarks and tabs restored.

AndrosForever · 04-23-2012, 01:02 | posts: 36 | Location: Next to my P7805u

Quote:

Originally Posted by zimzoid

Save the user folder to your hdd, fresh install the os to that ssd, copy the firefox folder from within the saved user folder, copy this to the new user folder on the ssd you should have your firefox bookmarks and tabs restored.

Great that covers Firefox, is there a way to transfer Registry values/application installations while keeping all of them in the same HDD so I don't have to reinstall everything (I have tons of applications and a lot of games installed as well).

AbjectBlitz · 04-23-2012, 14:18 | posts: 3,271 | Location: United Kingdom

You will just have to browser the registry, probably just "wow6432node" and backup all your games, cd keys and such. You might have to search for some of the well hidden ones.

Fofal · 04-23-2012, 16:39 | posts: 180 | Location: Canada Toronto

Are there things that have to be disabled when running the OS of an SSD?

Agent-A01 · 04-23-2012, 16:57 | posts: 5,621 | Location: USA

indexing page file. just follow a guide about ssd, ie speedguide.com

Outrance · 04-23-2012, 16:58 | posts: 1,712 | Location: NZ/Australia/Germany

Quote:

Originally Posted by brian

I have tons of applications and a lot of games installed as well.

I like turtles.