Safe Mode best for installing PC games?

Topic pretty much says all. Have older WinXP desktop PC. 40GB drive, 512 RAM, Athalon 3 Prcesr. Finding the larger games 1GB+ space(for this system anyway), are not running after install nowadays. CD's are not damaged, and PC is defragged+scandisk and cleanup-ed regularly. Still have 13 GB drive free. Safe Mode used to work well for install -avoids background tasks hogging power (or does it?), but it ain't happenin anymore. Do I stupidly exclude needed game items when I safe mode install? Any ideas for fixing this that don't involve my wallet getting completely emptied will be appreciated.

Even if you have some very resource hogging apps in the background, safe mode can be potentially slower, in safe mode windows only loads the bare bones of the system drivers, and the read/write buffer of the disk is disabled.

in a very short version: it would write to the disk even slower. depending of your hardware much less than half of the normal speed.

I dont have any very practical aswner to the problem, certainly you should try to remove uneded apps from the computer.

Aaag- suspected i was being misinformed about safe mode capabilities. TY for the corrections. Also found out one of my (soon to becrying)(I warned him!)kids changed some WinXp defaults on me! I'll look into that.

Well, this was a short post! Appreciated the input still. thanks.

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