Windows 10: Show Drive Letters Before or After Name in Windows 10

How to: Show Drive Letters Before or After Name in Windows 10

How to Show Drive Letters Before or After Drive Name in Windows 10


Information A drive letter is a single alphabetic character A through Z that has been assigned to a physical drive or drive partition in the computer.

A drive name or drive label, is a unique name of up to 32 (NTFS) or 11 (FAT) characters assigned to a drive, disc, or other media connected to the computer.

This tutorial will show you how to hide or show drive letters before or after drive labels in File Explorer for your account or all users in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Hide or Show Drive Letters Before or After Name for Current User
• Option Two: To Hide or Show Drive Letters Before or After Name for All Users

EXAMPLE: Drive Letters in This PC


















OPTION ONE [/i] To Hide or Show Drive Letters Before or After Name for Current User


Note Option Two below will override this option.


The .bat files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

ShowDriveLettersFirst DWORD

0 = (Default) Show all drive letters after drive label
1 = Show only network drive letters before drive label
2 = Hide all drive letters
4 = Show all drive letters before drive label


1. Do step 2, step 3, step 4, or step 5 below for what you would like to do.


2. To Show All Drive Letters After Drive Label
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 6 below.

Show_all_drive_letters_after_name.bat

Download

3. To Show Only Network Drive Letters After Drive Label
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 6 below.

Show_only_network_drive_letters_before_name.bat

Download

4. To Hide All Drive Letters
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 6 below.

Hide_all_drive_letters.bat

Download

5. To Show All Drive Letters Before Drive Label
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 6 below.

Show_all_drive_letters_before_name.bat

Download

6. Save the .bat file to your desktop.

7. Unblock the .bat file.

8. Run the .bat file.

9. You will now notice your screen flicker and a command prompt quickly open and close as explorer is restarted to apply the registry changes.

10. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.





OPTION TWO [/i] To Hide or Show Drive Letters Before or After Name for All Users


Note You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do this option.

This option will override Option One above.


The .bat files below will modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

ShowDriveLettersFirst DWORD

(delete) = (Default) Allow users to be able to use Option One above.
0 = Show all drive letters after drive labels
1 = Show only network drive letters before drive labels
2 = Hide all drive letters
4 = Show all drive letters before drive labels


1. Do step 2, step 3, step 4, step 5, or step 6 below for what you would like to do.


2. To Show All Drive Letters After Drive Label
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 7 below.

Show_all_drive_letters_after_name_for_all_users.bat

Download

3. To Show Only Network Drive Letters After Drive Label
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 7 below.

Show_only_network_drive_letters_before_name_for_all_users.bat

Download

4. To Hide All Drive Letters
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 7 below.

Hide_all_drive_letters_for_all_users.bat

Download

5. To Show All Drive Letters Before Drive Label
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 7 below.

Show_all_drive_letters_before_name_for_all_users.bat

Download

6. To Undo OPTION TWO and Allow Users to be able to do OPTION ONE
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the BAT file below, and go to step 7 below.

Undo_all_users.bat

Download

7. Save the .bat file to your desktop.

8. Unblock the .bat file.

9. Right click or press and hold on the .bat file, and click/tap on Run as administrator.

10. You will now notice your screen flicker and a command prompt quickly open and close as explorer is restarted to apply the registry changes.

11. When finished, you can delete the downloaded .bat file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Hide or Show Drive Letters in Windows 10
• How to Rename Drive Label in Windows 10
• How to Change a Drive Icon in Windows 10
• How to Change and Assign Drive Letter in Windows 10
• How to Remove a Drive Letter in Windows 10
• How to Hide Specified Drives in Windows

:)

 

Installed windows 10 and cannot access partition

I just installed windows 10 as upgrade to 7. My hard drive had another partition which had been encrypted with Truecrypt and on which partition I kept all my data. After installing 10, I was still able to access that partition using Truecrypt in the usual
way for the first day.

That night I powered off the PC and when I turned it on the next day TC came up with access error. I went into Explorer but the partition was not showing but when I opened Disk Management it showed up but without a drive letter. I do not remember what drive
letter I gave to that partition before only the virtual drive letter after TC had opened it. I then successfully reassigned a drive letter to that partition and then tried accessing it with TC using the assigned letter but that did not work. It possibly
was not the original drive letter, but that should not have made any difference as I changed the "device" in TC to the newly assigned letter.

I also tried a system restore but it was unable to restore to a previous time, but I don't think it would have helped if it had. The partition is showing in Drive Management as unformatted and the size and free space being the same. I think it would have
showed that way before as that is hot TC operates. If the new Windows had removed the drive letter, one would think that it would also have reformatted at the same time??

Very unhappy with Windows 10 apart from that as I had set it to download 10 upgrade and left it on all night and was shocked to find that it actually installed itself. Also some of my photos which were in a folder named Photos on my encrypted partition
had been copied or transferred to the C drive and must have been done so when I had left that drive unencrypted. Point is, I did not give permission! Who knows what other damage Windows has done, as I did not have time to check for more surprises. In the
meantime , how can I get TC to recognize that partition?

 

Rename Optical Drives (without using labels)

1. The optical drive is connected via SATA3 to the motherboard.

2. No error message is given. As described in the initial question, the label changes the name after the drive letter, not the name before the drive letter.

Troubleshooting> There are no troubles with troubleshooting. The drive works just fine.

The computer is up to date as of 2/13/16, 9:52AM Central US Time.

Again, as belabored in the initial question; how does one change the label of the optical drive before the letter (encircled in blue in the picture).

EDIT: Is this just not possible? I haven't heard any response in awhile now.

 

I'm glad it could help. *Smile

 

I see the difference but I don't understand the reason for doing such a thing. Please explain.

Jack

 

Hey Jack, *Smile

It's just one of those personal preference type settings.

 

Thank you Shawn.

Jack