Sir Topham Hatt Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 On the last week of my 3rd PC (building a new one), the new case doesn't have space for an optical drive. That's a new venture for me but I can't think of the last time I used it. Made me think of floppy disk drives and whether Microsoft will ever configure Windows not to recognise these old pieces of hardware? This then led me to think whether they would ever change it so Windows will be installed on the A drive. Or whether drives will become numbers instead of letters? What are your thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon H Supervisor Posted October 17, 2018 Supervisor Share Posted October 17, 2018 i doubt it would likely require too much re-coding for little to no benefit has the possibility of breaking existing apps too (though that chance is a lot lower than it used to be as most devs are smart and don't hard code system file paths anymore) edit: i've gotten on your train of thought a bit though and this has got me wondering. Why is B: drive rarely if ever used? A: is floppy C : is main D: usually gets used for backup/recovery E: is usually the default assignment for CD drives B: gets skipped, even USB drives don't usually assign to it by default. I wonder why this is. dead.cell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ready2018 Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 It's not really for Microsoft to decide as they are making Windows for PC compatibles. This means it has to stick to the Drive A: and C: and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1for-matik Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 (edited) 14 minutes ago, Brandon H said: A: is floppy C : is main D : usually gets used for backup/recovery E: is usually the default assignment for CD drives B: gets skipped, even USB drives don't usually assign to it by default. I wonder why this is. Like A: , B: drive is system reserved for 5" 1/4 floppy disk drive or a second 3" 1/2 floppy disk drive. DConnell and Brandon H 1 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techbeck Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 20 minutes ago, Brandon H said: A: is floppy C : is main 😧 usually gets used for backup/recovery E: is usually the default assignment for CD drives B: gets skipped, even USB drives don't usually assign to it by default. I wonder why this is. D....depends really . If you don't have a recovery partition, D is normally the CDROM Drive. And like someone else stated, B is normally reserved for the 5 1/4 drives. But if you have no floppies or plan to use them, you can map folders to the A, B, and other drivers. dead.cell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ve7878 Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 I don't think that Windows indexes drives which are mapped to A:\ or B:\ so best to assign them to removable devices only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PsYcHoKiLLa Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 On 10/17/2018 at 5:43 PM, Brandon H said: i doubt it would likely require too much re-coding for little to no benefit has the possibility of breaking existing apps too (though that chance is a lot lower than it used to be as most devs are smart and don't hard code system file paths anymore) edit: i've gotten on your train of thought a bit though and this has got me wondering. Why is B: drive rarely if ever used? A: is floppy C : is main D: usually gets used for backup/recovery E: is usually the default assignment for CD drives B: gets skipped, even USB drives don't usually assign to it by default. I wonder why this is. B: Was usually for a second floppy so if you were copying/duplicating floppies then A and B would be your 2 floppy drives, hence why C is the system drive. Brandon H 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted October 22, 2018 Veteran Share Posted October 22, 2018 A and B drives used to be bootable drives prior to accessing the c drive which was the system drive. It was general boot order starting from A, then they just became place holders. Now it isn't as relevant as it once was as windows internally doesn't utilize drive letters, it is more for users and ease of identification. Windows sees them as \Device\Harddiskx on the back end. To answer the question in the most simplest of terms, no they will not be moving away from C : for a very long time. As long as people remain simple and do not like change, it is most likely not going to change as programs are written in such a fashion to incorporate that. DConnell 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted October 22, 2018 Veteran Share Posted October 22, 2018 (edited) even better, lets ditch drive letters and use mount points and hardware paths...... \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 is so much better 😛 Circaflex 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted October 22, 2018 MVC Share Posted October 22, 2018 We also need that bug fixed were removable devices are given drive letters of mapped network drives which makes the mapped network drive inaccessible via the drive letter until the removable device is unplugged. Xenon and JustGeorge 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neufuse Veteran Posted October 22, 2018 Veteran Share Posted October 22, 2018 21 minutes ago, warwagon said: We also need that bug fixed were removable devices are given drive letters of mapped network drives which makes the mapped network drive inaccessible via the drive letter until the removable device is unplugged. yeah that is really annoying... especially when you have 10+ mapped drives and a USB stick randomly picks on of them as it's drive and you can't easily see it until you look closely Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon H Supervisor Posted October 22, 2018 Supervisor Share Posted October 22, 2018 25 minutes ago, warwagon said: We also need that bug fixed were removable devices are given drive letters of mapped network drives which makes the mapped network drive inaccessible via the drive letter until the removable device is unplugged. oh wow, never run across that myself; sounds super annoying though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted October 22, 2018 MVC Share Posted October 22, 2018 4 minutes ago, neufuse said: yeah that is really annoying... especially when you have 10+ mapped drives and a USB stick randomly picks on of them as it's drive and you can't easily see it until you look closely Such a stupid bug that should not still be there. I'm not a coder but it sounds like a 1 line of code type of Fix. If (The drive letter selected is already in use, pick another one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrynalyne Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 5 minutes ago, neufuse said: yeah that is really annoying... especially when you have 10+ mapped drives and a USB stick randomly picks on of them as it's drive and you can't easily see it until you look closely I had that happen to me a couple weeks ago. Infuriating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGeorge Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 50 minutes ago, warwagon said: We also need that bug fixed were removable devices are given drive letters of mapped network drives which makes the mapped network drive inaccessible via the drive letter until the removable device is unplugged. **** Yes! This is a constant annoyance and my job. Personally, I want to ban portable drives altogether because they're an unnecessary security risk, but that's another battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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