It used to be said by IT systems managers that one of the main causes for PC problems was the user installing/running games on the same PC that had "work-related" software installed. Now, that was back in the days of '98 and various flavours of Windows for Workgroups etc. Is running games on the same machine and set-up that I use for (say) Photoshop, Dreamweaver and video editing still asking for trouble with XP Pro (SP2, fully patched etc)?

I've just resurrected a PC that I had built for me about 3 years ago - originally configured for fairly ambitious video editing (e.g. using Canopus DV Storm2) - OS now upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP Pro for better compatibility with my laptop. While I now re-load the PC with my "work" software (WP, Firefox, e-mail etc) and eventually the video edit programme, I'm tempted to also load some of my favourite games that I used to play on a separate workhorse PC.

1] Am I inviting problems doing that at all ?

2] Should I look at setting up a kind of dual boot - i.e. a stripped-down boot for running games (solo not internet multi-player) games ?

3] Should I try to install the games on a separate logical drive and go with just the same boot ?

4) Any other recommendations for a trouble-free (as far as possible) route to running what I like on the same PC ?

Current configuration is as follows:

XP Pro SP2

AsusTek P4PE Mobo

Pentium 4 2.53Ghz CPU

40Gb Maxtor 6L040J2 hard drive - partitioned as C: 14Gb and E: 23Gb logical drives)

335Gb Striped D: Drive (3 SCSI physical drives Raid 0 - should be reserved for video edit material)

NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 graphics card *

(* needless to say, I'm now considering an upgrade to this card - subject to bang-for-buck and mobo compatibility)

Thanks in advance for any pointers .

While games can be resource hogs. I don't usually see any problems with installing them side by side with productivity software. In fact, games are often the reason you upgrade your system to better specs, which benifits programs such as Photoshop etc.

While that being said, installing loads of demos or cracked games can be looking for problems. But if you have originals of everything, I can't forsee any problems.

I myself run XP Pro SP2 on my notebook which I use for my business stuff, graphic design, web development etc. and I have quite a few games installed, Battlefield 2142, Half-Life 2 etc. and I haven't had any problems.

I don't see any reason why *installing* games on a work machine would lead to problems. Perhaps if the game included some TSRs or tray items (but few games do). Perhaps if you installed a *lot* of games and this led to major disk fragmentation... but that's a long shot. Perhaps if you installed pirated games with weird virii or cracks, but again, a long shot.

If an IT manager said something like that, it's more likely that he's afraid of the user using the computer more for games than work, rather than the games causing any problems. If installing games could cause problems, then installing most third party programs could be even more problematic.

I would be careful to install games for online playing on an work computer and would choose a dual boot. For game which will be not played online you have to take care about the used resources only.

There software around which you can use to start and stop TSR programs just as you need them. That maybe usefull for using on an "shared" computer.

Thanks for the reassuring replies - some useful points there. BTW, I'll be installing original (bought in UK) solo games.

On balance, I prefer to "kill" the non-essential (for games) processes rather than set up a dual boot.

Reimar - is there a particular software that you would recommend?

Regarding my point 3], I generally try to keep data on the second logical drive E: - not as good as on a separate physical drive, of course, but maybe I'll put in an extra physical drive for that purpose.