Any tips or wise things to do before installing games and other software ?

I thought i read a while back that you should defrag your drive before installing any software. just wondering if thats true, and if i were installing a few games in a row, would it matter if you defragged after each install? if i remeber right, it helped just a smidge in running the game, no big increase, but was the right way to do it.

This true?

Any other "good ideas" to pay attention too when installing software ? Forgive my ignorance.

I used to defrag regularly after an install of a game. Defragging made quite a difference in Oblivion running smoother when loading between areas. These days, on the XP gaming rig, I have an automatic defragger installed on my system, and it defrags whenever it's necessary, automatically in the background using idle resources. It has freed me from ever having to worry about scheduling defrags for my 1+ TB drive array (although it has the manual option too should I need it). Automatic defrag is really cool! My drives are in top condition :)