this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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You can say goodbye to these legacy File Explorer options on Windows 11

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)

How the fuck is removing the drive letters going to work? That's some crazy stupid shit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My tech company relies heavily on custom drive letters. If this feature goes public, we will never move off of Windows 10. It would literally kill the business if we couldn't see which drive we were accessing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

yep, same. we've been saying at the office for the last year or so that win11 is going to be a skip and it sure looks like it now.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think most people have misunderstood these changes. Drive letters are not removed, but the option "Show drive letters" in folder options is removed. By default, that option is enabled, so the drive letters will be shown, now if you want to disable them you'll have to go to the registry.

Just like "Hide protected OS files" is enabled by default, it will remain like that, if you want to show them, you'll have to fiddle with the registry instead of just changing an option.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I cant remember where I saw it, but there was a long windows conference on youtube recently but they are planning a big windows revamp it might be part of that, This time its not just front end but a lot of backend stuff is changing. including trying to make Adminless users the default without losing any important functionally for the average user.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

found it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6ClX-y2AE

Edit: Also iirc Dev and Canary channels are currently now testing windows 12, they just haven't officially switched the names over.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It doesn't sound like they're removing the displayed drive letters so much as removing the setting that lets you toggle them on or off.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

"Get rid of that useless local account feature, but slowly, make it difficult to use first."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Removing things like showing drive letters in explorer, but in another part of the announcement they're introducing a new focus session widget? I...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Removing things like showing drive letters in explorer

what.

I'm going to have to finally bite the bullet and move to linux soon, am I? >.>

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Linux doesn't show drive letters either.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

There are no drive letters in Linux because that concept is specific to Windows.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

I have like 4 drives at minimum and knowing where I am at a glance is nice, is there no hope

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe Linux has an alternative way to show drives. Idk I haven't tried Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Linux has a very different file-structure, which is the way your files are organized on a system. It's a bit weird at first, but once you get used to it makes a lot of sense. A second drive can often be found at /mnt/DRIVENAME or /media/DRIVENAME. But they show up in the file manager in a list anyhow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

That's for mounting, yeah, but when it comes to interacting with the hardware, Linux itself uses letters for some types of devices. For example, serial-connected ones (e.g. SATA internal drives, USB external drives) are /dev/sdx (x being a letter from A-Z). I don't know what happens when all letters are used up though, maybe someone can chime in there? NVMe uses numbers it seems - my boot drive is /dev/nvme0n1

There are other ways to access devices and partitions besides that though. I just had to put EndeavourOS on a flash drive and the Arch Wiki recommended doing this by targeting the drive via /dev/disk/by-id/, which lists connected drives by name, connectivity and serial number.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's totally true and somehow it didn't think of it. I think that is the closest equivalent of the Windows naming scheme on storage devices.
But on the contrary: I believe on Windows the drive letters ( C:, D;, etc) ARE used for recognition (by the user) while the drive is already mounted. But you can also mount them without assigning a drive letter, making it somewhat different than how it's handled in Linux. On Linux, the (average) user usually doesn't see stuff like "/dev/sda" unless they specifically look for it. At most, they will see the name that are assigned to the drive and it's mounting point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pretty much, yeah. I think Windows uses something like \\PhysicalDisk0 internally, then shows it to the user with lettering.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When all the letters are used up, it goes into doubles, i.e. /dev/sdaa, /dev/sdab, and then triples, I believe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Linux doesn't show drive letters because it doesn't use drive letters at all. Instead, everything is a file off of the root directory.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Because that arbitrary concept doesn't exist in Linux.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Linux doesn't have drive letters. They use an entirely different system, where everything is a file.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In Linux there is one filesystem and you mount your drives in a folder of your choosing within that filesystem. By default external drives mount in /mnt or /run or wherever your distro sets a default mount point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm thinking the same. Windows becomes worse all the time. The only thing that's kept me are some games.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Show drive letter

The fuk

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

WIndows 11 UI is only bearable with StartAllBack. https://www.startallback.com/
Neagtive. Costs 5 dollars for 1 license, more for more licenses.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

i use StartAllBack and it is heavenly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My Windows10 start menu broke when they added news & interests to the taskbar - typing to find an app stopped working and I could never fix it.

Finally I installed open-shell menu which replaces my start menu and restores it back to a more classic start menu with the ability to find apps by typing.

I'm honestly getting tired of Windows and all of my productivity apps are available for linux these days so I don't know why I'm still running it aside from convenience. Once it's no longer convenient, off I go to another platform. If only Spez from Reddit would get that concept.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Photoshop was the last program that kept me on Windows. Photopea.com does 95% of what my old Photoshop 5.5 does for me.
I'm 99% ready to move over to a Linux distro for day to day home use, and 90% done for work.
All my users are already dualboot ready, they just dont know it yet.

I suggest to make a list of program on Windows that are critical for you, and then make a list of programs on Linux (that are maintained) and install everything on a 2nd SSD. The cost is negligible and you can tinker as much as you want without breaking your Windows install in any way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Lol yeah I've been avoiding paid software for a while - and I agree, Photopea is awesome, I've been switching over to that as well. I've purposely stuck with open source alternatives for years, including for my CAD and 3D modelling needs. And I've toyed with the live-DVD of LinuxMint a few months back and it's a slick looking OS. Once windows pisses me off enough, I'll go dual-boot and default to linux mint

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

yeah, it was the only thing keeping me with windows 11 before moving to linux

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Show drive letter

Every day, I feel happier that I use Windows 10

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Every day I feel happier that I gave up on windows entirely.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Trust me, I'd give up on Windows too. If only Linux had better app compatibility; I need to depend on Microsoft Office a lot, and anticheats break games on Linux

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

WTF? I don't even use icons and always use list view. I still have Windows here on my desktop but, aside from gaming, linux does basically everything I want already and I have it on my laptop.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

For me, Linux does gaming just fine, though I admit I never play AAA games and rarely anything released in the last few years, which probably helps (as well as helping my bank balance!)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The options will continue to be available through registry keys.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Getting tired of the endless reg edits necessary to enable basic functionality on Windows 11

I use Windows 10 at home and it's not so bad, but using Windows 11 at work makes me understand why everyone hates it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I went the batshit crazy route and just set up an AD server for home.

Let's me gain some knowledge for work and ensure that every PC I configure at home 'just works' and if I've got to make changes to get something to actually fucking work, I only have to do it once.

A few of my linux servers auth through it too, which is pretty convenient, honestly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks like Microsoft are taking EU concerns to heart and are inviting friendly competition from alternative file explorers for Windows.

/s

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Even in Windows 10 I've thought multiple times about searching for a better explorer, but the default one was always just good enough, so I wouldn't do it. When I have to switch to Windows 11, I might have to actually do it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Lol, another reason to never look back regarding MS shit 😂. Hide system files no more 🤨 🤣!? Why don't we just remove everything from being viewed and just say that you can only mod user files and that's it 🤣. There is only User<UserName> and that's it 🤣.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I stopped being windows many years ago except when I've to fix my mobile phone. In linux we don't have drive letters I just name the partitions instead.

[–] briongloid 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Many of these are legacy settings that have been around for ages and are not being regularly used by people on Windows 11.

You know what else isn't regularly used? Windows 11.

Nearly 75% of Windows users are still on Win10 and many are waiting for it to be considered stable and upgrade worthy, Microsofts data is flawed IMO.

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