Rebooting After Install

[DarthInsinuate]

after you install some programs it asks you to reboot, what happens if i ignore this and just use the program anyway?

what is it actually doing when it reboots?

[Livy]

just finalises some setting and files etc, but you can usually use the program anyway, but your better to restart.

[balamm]

A lot of programs just won't let you run them without a reboot. When you restart, it rebuilds the registry and loads any new .dlls and drivers into memory, indexes everything, builds associations, etc.

The odd thing is, Linux and Maybe Mac don't require a restart in most cases and now also Windows Server 2003 will just carry on after most software installs.
Things like clone CD still request a restart but It looks like MS is moving away from all the reboots.

Win9x was a bitch for that! Every bloody program required a restart and so did most setting changes.