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Windows drive letters are not limited to A-Z

⁨104⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.ryanliptak.com/blog/windows-drive-letters-are-not-limited-to-a-z/

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Comments

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  • db2@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Drive letters. How quaint.

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    • cannedtuna@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Windows. How quaint.

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    • Joelk111@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The Linux approach did take some getting used to, of course, but mounting drives to folders just makes too much sense. The only qualm I’ve had with it is if the drive doesn’t get mounted and stuff gets written to that folder, which, AFAIK, isn’t possible in windows.

      Also, tbf (and balanced), windows also supports mounting drives to folders.

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    • Screen_Shatter@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I have to admit that growing up on windows made it really confusing this past week when I installed a new hard drive and had to add it to my steam library. I have to create a partition? And “mount” it? Using the terminal and commands??? Then after following tutorials for that I discovered Bazzite comes with a disk manager which makes it much easier.

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  • Chronographs@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Interesting read but I can’t think of much of a reason to ever use nonstandard drive letters except to maybe hide malware or something.

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    • ViatorOmnium@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Maybe you have more than 26 storage devices, but don’t know how to use folder mounts on windows, or are weirdly attached to bad design decision from the 1980s.

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      • Chronographs@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Yeah but as file explorer and even powershell can’t use the mount that 27th drive mounted to +:/ isn’t going to be very usable

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    • Saganaki@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      One (contrived) example would be to have a drive that doesn’t have any installed file system filters on it. Filters being the hooks that windows, antivirus, etc have that intercept file writes and such. Could make it much faster on windows for that use-case. I can see custom software using that drive.

      Contrived? Definitely. But potentially useful. I can see it working similarly to something MS has in testing which is the file system thing that is super fast but is limited in features—can’t seem to find it atm…

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  • lordnikon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    you can also mount it to a directory just like in POSIX systems

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    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      And is the default behavior once it runs out of “normal” drive letters I think.

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  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    So? Who cares? Drive letters were always a dumb idea.

    Also, obligatory “get your butt off of windows, switch to Linux.”

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  • adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Now I’m imagining someone making 💩: their default boot drive.

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  • semperverus@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Its interesting to see how Linux-like NT paths are.

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  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Drive letters <<< whatever Linux is doing << the Amiga approach to drives

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    • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I haven’t used an Amiga in several decades and memory is kind of murky. So how does the Amiga approaches drives?

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      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Similar to Windows, but it’s not just a single letter. E.g. df0:.

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  • ColdWater@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What’s drive letters?

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    • cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In inferior operating systems they refer to mountpoints as “drive letters”. “C” is like “root”

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    • Scolding7300@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Hard drive, e.g. C:, D:, etc. From what I gather from the headline

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      • Trigger2_2000@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Drive Letters are also for removable media (floppy disks, CD/DVD drives, others [magneto-optical drives, etc), not to mention network drives. Not just Fixed Disks (hard drives).

        It’s just an easy way to specify one disk from another.

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