How to show drive letters first in Windows XP
Posted: 5/18/2008 5:21:51 PM
By: Comfortably Anonymous
Times Read: 2,176
0 Dislikes: 0
Topic: Windows Administration

Out-of-the-box, Windows XP will show the drive letters (Ex: C:) AFTER the drive description (Such as Local Disk) in "My Computer". For some reason, that's always bugged me. (I think Windows 3.x did it the other way.)

So, instead of Local Disk (C:), the following registry change will change it to instead look like (C:) Local Disk.

There are four possible settings for how drive information is displayed:

ShowDriveLettersFirst Registry Values

Value

Description

Example

0

 Description followed by drive letters (Default)

 Local Disk (C:)

1

 Show network drive letters before description, but for local drives show description, then drive letters.

 (U:) User on Server
 Local Disk (C:)

2

 Only show drive description, do not show drive letter.

 Local Disk

4

 Show drive letter, then description

 (C:) Local Disk

 

 

 

 

 

 To modify the default setting, perform the following steps:

  1. Click Start, Run, then type Regedit.exe
  2. Open the following branch:

     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer 

  3. If a setting named ShowDriveLettersFirst already exists, then just adjust the value of the setting. If not, then create a REG_DWORD value and name it ShowDriveLettersFirst.
  4. Double-click ShowDriveLettersFirst and set the value to the value you wish to use in the table above.
  5. Close RegEdit, and close My Computer. Next time you open My Computer, it will use the setting you specified in the registry.

  Note: This setting has been known to work on everything from Windows 95 on through to Windows XP. It's not known if it will work on Vista.

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