By Lincoln Spector
January 10, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Norm Hunt wants to know, when he’s installing more than one program, if he should reboot between installs.

Some installs require a reboot, and others don’t. They generally make that clear at the end of the installation. If a message comes up at the end of an install (or uninstall) telling you to reboot, by all means do so as soon as possible.

As a general rule, I wouldn’t recommend installing one program immediately after another (although I too find the temptation too hard to resist when setting up a new PC). If you install several programs at once, and your PC starts to misbehave, it’s hard to determine the culprit. It’s much easier if you wait a day or two between installations, and do at least one reboot during that time.