Are we finally ditching drive letters?

rumplestiltskin · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
You could get rid of them I suppose, but for one reason. Safely eject drive. Sometimes external drives do not show up by their
name in "safely remove drive" - they are sometimes only unique by drive letter. And safely remove drive is it's own entity on the taskbar.

Since Windows is recycling ideas from Apple, it would be nice if they implemented their idea of right clicking on the drive and being able to choose safely remove from the context menu (perhaps after going to "show more options"

). I mean how hard is that, it is the logical and sensible thing to do. Then they could get rid of the stupid taskbar "safely remove" thingy.

Absolutely; Mac users have always known they are to "eject" a mounted hard drive prior to disconnecting it. Once drives appear on the Desktop (and I suppose you could have a dedicated area for them - like in the upper left corner of the screen starting with the boot drive and proceeding down with the other drives appearing alphabetically...just like Apple) then there's come consistency. But Mac users (like Windows users) may opt for not keeping the Desktop organized alphabetically and HDs can appear all over the Desktop. Virtually every Mac user (who was a client over the last 25+ years) who ended up preferring to keep their Desktop "personalized" (with cr-p all over the screen) lost track of where their mounted HDs were positioned. I expect Windows users might have similar results (although many in this forum will not because they might just stick with drive letters and opt not to have drives auto-mount on the Desktop).

Auto-mounting on the Desktop is directed at non-programmers and novices. Microsoft should make Windows welcoming (and that has nothing to do with the "welcome to windows" initial startup which is anything but "welcoming").

ICIT2LOL · Aug 31, 2021

I don't know about anyone else but I am getting pretty sick of all the nonsense that is going on with Windows 11 with the restrictions that have made four of my machines redundant in the future and now this stuff about redesigning if that is what they are doing with the infrastructure of the OS is making me quite disappointed with Microsoft who have gladly taken my hard-earned cash over the years to now dump me like an old worn out rag.

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

Well, it is really not about mac vs. Windows, it is what makes sense and works. Look at this, Windows safely remove is flawed. I have three external drives mounted (yes I do do this, it is not just an exercise). All safely remove shows me is the interface. If I would have had two drives, it would have shown me the drive letter and name too,. But with three or more drives it doesn't have room to show me, and I am stuck with guessing the order. If you could safely dismount a drive by right clicking on it, you would not have this problem. After all, FORMAT is in a drives right click menu.

The issue really has nothing to do with Macs vs Windows and I am sorry I brought it up. But you do know that Microsoft is/has been incorporating many of MacOS first ideas already - compressed memory, rounded windows corners, taskbar, and flattened out non-hierarcical (folders) start menu to name a few. Now I think some of these things they are adopting were done better in Windows 10 so I think Windows is loosing its identity - hence my snarky MacOS comment. And some things in MacOS are truely awful. But this isn't one of those. I try to have an open mind.

BunnyJ · Aug 31, 2021

ICIT2LOL said:
I don't know about anyone else but I am getting pretty sick of all the nonsense that is going on with Windows 11 with the restrictions that have made four of my machines redundant in the future and now this stuff about redesigning if that is what they are doing with the infrastructure of the OS is making me quite disappointed with Microsoft who have gladly taken my hard-earned cash over the years to now dump me like an old worn out rag.

I agree.. the new requirements are not needed, IMO. I understand the need for more security but this is going overboard when there are many good PC's that can't use 11.,. mind = blown

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

Oops forgot the picture: Safely Eject. Which one?

BunnyJ · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Well, it is really not about mac vs. Windows, it is what makes sense and works. Look at this, Windows safely remove is flawed. I have three external drives mounted (yes I do do this, it is not just an exercise). All safely remove shows me is the interface. If I would have had two drives, it would have shown me the drive letter and name too,. But with three or more drives it doesn't have room to show me, and I am stuck with guessing the order. If you could safely dismount a drive by right clicking on it, you would not have this problem. After all, FORMAT is in a drives right click menu.

The issue really has nothing to do with Macs vs Windows and I am sorry I brought it up. But you do know that Microsoft is/has been incorporating many of MacOS first ideas already - compressed memory, rounded windows corners, taskbar, and flattened out non-hierarcical (folders) start menu to name a few. Now I think some of these things they are adopting were done better in Windows 10 so I think Windows is loosing its identity - hence my snarky MacOS comment. And some things in MacOS are truely awful. But this isn't one of those. I try to have an open mind.

No thanks.. I'm a programmer and as such I need to use drive letters and not names as in a Mac and I think many other programmers would agree with me. There are many tasks that I perform from the command line and using a drive letter to navigate is easy and quick. Yes.. it's old.. back to the 70's but it still works and there's zero reason to change it.

The changes that Windows has incorporated from a Mac are superficial and mainly effect the GUI. IMO.. that should be it.,

BunnyJ · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Oops forgot the picture: Safely Eject. Which one?

View attachment 6762

And?

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

rumplestiltskin said:
Absolutely; Mac users have always known they are to "eject" a mounted hard drive prior to disconnecting it. Once drives appear on the Desktop (and I suppose you could have a dedicated area for them - like in the upper left corner of the screen starting with the boot drive and proceeding down with the other drives appearing alphabetically...just like Apple) t

You don't need a special area, it already exists: My Computer. All drives show up there. All MS needs to do is add a context menu item for external drives to safely dismount them. They already to that for some things (dismounting virtually mounted iso for instance). It would not be some (shudder) MAC thing.

It is the sensible thing to do. It is object-oriented - a property of the drive, not of some taskbar thing.

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

BunnyJ said:
And?

Seriously? I want to only Dismount my Data Drive R: Which one of those is that?

BunnyJ · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Really? I want to only Dismount my Data Drive R: Which one of those is that?

Ok.. I don't need to do that.. so why have that in Windows?

ICIT2LOL · Aug 31, 2021

BunnyJ said:
I agree.. the new requirements are not needed, IMO. I understand the need for more security but this is going overboard when there are many good PC's that can't use 11.,. mind = blown

Yes Bunny mate I just think it is total overkill for the average computer user and I think of the amount of e-waste that is going to be generated and I dread to think of the cost to companies and government departments that are going to have to shell out heaven knows much money to have Windows 11 running.
I know from experience having worked for the health department out here in Australia the level of disruption that went on when they had to change from 7 to 10!! and what must have cost a fortune to convert, and buy-in new equipment to do just that. This Windows 11 changeover is going to cost even more than that because of the redundancy of the equipment they have now, and it is all going to be passed onto the good old taxpayer and those of us who have to buy any form of service beit tradespeople and retail outlets.
It all smacks of a money grab for MS and those computer and computer hardware suppliers who must be laughing all the way to the bank!!

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

BunnyJ said:
Ok.. I don't need to do that.. so why have that in Windows?

Well I need to do that. No disrespect meant but just because you don't need to doesn't mean other people don't. And yeah, they should get rid of it and replace it with a proper dismount in the drive's context.

BunnyJ · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Well I need to do that. Just beause you don't need to doesn't mean other people don't.

And? The majority of Windows users likely wont. Drive letters are here to stay.

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

BunnyJ said:
And? The majority of Windows users likely wont. Drive letters are here to stay.

Wow, that is pretty narrow minded. And you speak for the masses? Lets just accept things that don't really work and lets get rid of Windows and just all get an IPAD, because that is all most people need.

EDIT: And I never said we should give up driver letters, just that you couldn't with things like this issue.

rumplestiltskin · Aug 31, 2021

Hmmm...my USB eject menu shows each hardware device ID (like "Seagate ###AAA") and, subordinate to that, the letter and name of the volume. (I might have the letter location wrong.) So I know, by the name, which drive I want to eject. The letters are irrelevant as they change fairly often.

rumplestiltskin · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Wow, that is pretty narrow minded. And you speak for the masses? Lets just accept things that don't really work and lets get rid of Windows and just all get an IPAD, because that is all most people need.

Oh, the horror...the horror...

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

rumplestiltskin said:
Hmmm...my USB eject menu shows each hardware device ID (like "Seagate ###AAA") and, subordinate to that, the letter and name of the volume. (I might have the letter location wrong.) So I know, by the name, which drive I want to eject. The letters are irrelevant as they change fairly often.

It depends on the USB interface at the other end. For instance these srives are in a 5-bay external chassis. And as I said for two or less drive, it disambiguates with the drive letter and name, with more than two, not. This is an issue with the antiquated approach (task bar safely remove) that has been there since I do not know when - Windows 95?

PerpetualCycle · Aug 31, 2021

rumplestiltskin said:
Oh, the horror...the horror...

LOL.

Fabler2 · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
Seriously? I want to only Dismount my Data Drive R: Which one of those is that?

View attachment 6763

How about ejecting the drive which brings up the 'safely remove' popup?

rumplestiltskin · Aug 31, 2021

geneo said:
It depends on the USB interface at the other end. For instance these srives are in a 5-bay external chassis. And as I said for two or less drive, it disambiguates with the drive letter and name, with more than two, not. This is an issue with the antiquated approach (task bar safely remove) that has been there since I do not know when - Windows 95?

I have a 4-bay enclosure that does list all the mounted volumes but I can only eject -all- the drives. This is true whether I plug the device into my Mac or my Lenovo. No hot-swapping permitted.

Are we finally ditching drive letters?

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