Premiere Elements 8 Installation Optimization?

Question

After using Adobe Elements "3" for the past few years I have decided to upgrade to "8" and I am ready to install it now. I have read a lot of information on the forums about the various improvements and have learned a lot about the causes of my frustrations over the years.
I am also just starting to use (learn) photoshop CS2 (yea...behind a bit). I have used other photo editing programs and recently decided to try Photoshop since I purchased sometime back.
I am going to install this on a machine I have dedicated exclusively to media editing and production. I wanted to get the advice of the experts out there to ensure my installation is optimized before I begin. The following are the system specs for the machine I am going to be using:
Del Precision 690 Dual Core Xeon Proc. 5150, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz, nVidia Quadro FX 4500, 512 MB dual VGA or DVI graphics.
Two hard drives, C: 250 GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 7200 RPM w/8MB DataBurst Cache and D: 500 GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 7200 RPM w/16 MB DataBurst Cache,
C1- All SATA Hard Drives Non RAID for 1 or 2 Hard Drives. The OS is Windows XP Pro - Serv. pk 2
Currently the C: Drive has 120 GB of used space and is home to a few programs and a large music library. D: Drive is virtually empty with only 394 MB used.
Currently my virtual memory settings are: C: Page file size 2046-4092 D: Has nothing set? I'm not sure if should or not?
My goal would be to use what I currently have (hardware and software wise) and optimize the settings and the installation for reliability and speed (if those two words can be used in the same sentence). Anything I can do prior to installing that might help overall I would like to do now. Here are a few of my questions:
Should I install Premiere Elements 8 on the "C" drive or the "D" drive?
Should I have all captures saved and rendering done on the "D" drive since it is basically empty?
From what I read, the virtual setting for my system should be adjusted to a maximum of 9092. Based on the 2 to 2.5 times the 4GB Ram. Is this correct?
Should I leave the "inital size setting at 2046?
Should I only ajdust these up when I am using this program and set them back otherwise or should I adjust them initially and leave them?
I have noticed there is an update for "8" already. Is this something I should download immediately or only if there is a problem?
I am going to be installing Photoshop CS2 on this machine at the same time. Is there any recommendation as to which one should be installed first?
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. I am ready to install with both boxed programs sitting in front of me. I have removed all prior versions and cleaned everything up so it is all nice and fresh.
Thank you
mharris56

Answer 1

Overall, you seem to be in good shape. Although you definitely want to up XP to SP3 and go to Windows Update/Custom to ensure you have even the non-critical updates. Also, ensure you have the latest version of Quicktime.
1. Yes, you MUST install Premiere Elements on your C drive.
2. Use your D drive to store your project files and media. In fact, I'd recommend that, for each project, you open a new folder on the D drive for your project file. This will, among other things, keep your scratch and render files in a need place so that, when it comes time to remove the project from your computer, you can erase all of the files related to the project just by deleting the folder.
Also, ensure your D drive is formatted NTFS and not FAT32.
As for the rest of your questions:
I would let the system configure Virtual Memory. There's no reason to manually set it on XP.
You should have no problems installing both Photohsop CS2 and the Elements programs on the same computer.
Finally, check out the FAQs to the right of this forum. The first several deal with issues and updates for Premiere Elements 8.