Same install of games for 2 OS'

[ep3w]

I have an esata external for my notebook that I use for storage but I also have all my game installed on it. I run XP right now but have been considering dual booting Vista just for the hell it (i can get a free copy through school). My question is if performance will be affected since there won't be any registry entries for any of the games in Vista. I know it won't be in the start menu which is not a big deal, but I am more curious about the performance aspect. Also I just noticed CCleaner tries to delete some registry entries pertaining to the games when my external is off. Will this make any difference if they are deleted? Thanks for any help!

 

[SuperSubZero]

If by performance you mean "the game won't run period if it relies on those registry entries being there" then yes, it will be adversely affected. Some games will re-create stock registry settings if they are missing, others will make you reinstall the game.

No, I don't have a list of what games do what.

 

[Mithent]

The presence of absence of registry entries is unlikely to affect performance, but it may, as mentioned, change whether they work at all. CCleaner is presumably trying to delete them because they're referring to nonexistent files; Registry cleaners are potentially dangerous as they don't necessarily understand what they're doing.

Checking in HKLM\SOFTWARE and HKCU\Software for keys named after the game or its developer/publisher should probably find any that you would need to export and re-import to Vista to make them work (provided the drive letters are the same). However, no guarantees; games tend to be reasonably self-contained but there could certainly be other dependencies (especially if they use copy protection). Also, if Vista is Vista x64, the Registry is designed for 64-bit programs only - 32-bit programs go under Wow6432Node.

 

[ep3w]

I didn't know that there were some that were dependent on them..so if I understand it right its really only a matter of if it runs or not, at least that will be easy to figure out and only thing to do is try it Thanks for the help!