Why does Windows still use characters for drives?

Windows usually assigns your system drive with C: characters and different letters to other storage devices. MacOS and Linux operating systems do not use letters to name the drive. Windows can access the drive without characters, so why are they still using them?

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Where do the drive letters come from?

Like many other things in Windows, such as, how it uses a backslash instead of a forward slash, the drive letter from MS-DOS (it was actually used earlier). That's why Windows system drives use C :, A: and B: letters for floppy drives.

The drive letter has been moved to MS-DOS from CP / M (an older operating system). They provide a way to access logical and physical storage devices containing files. To access a file named README.TXT on the second floppy drive, simply type B: README.TXT.

The command line needs drive letters, if not for it, how can you quickly specify the path to the file on other devices? The MS-DOS system has inherited it and Microsoft has stuck with it ever since.

Although the drive letter now seems less important when we are using graphical desktops, just click on the icon to open the file, but it still plays an important role. Even if you only access files using the graphical tool, the programs you use must refer to those files with the file path in the background and they use the drive letter to do so.

Alternative Unix: Mount Point solution

However, drive letters are not the only viable solution. MacOS, Linux and Apple's other Unix-like operating systems use a different method to access different partitions and storage devices.

Instead of using characters to access, you can access a device according to the directory path in the file system. For example, on Linux, the external storage device is mounted at / mount , so instead of accessing the DVD drive at D :, you can access the / mount / dvd path .

This will access the root of the file system. Linux and macOS have no drive letters, so the base part of the file system is not alphabetical. These operating systems have the root directory which is / . The system drive is mounted at / instead of C:. Other drives can be mounted at random folders. If you want your home directory to store another drive, you can mount at / home , then access the contents of the drive at that path.

You can access the drive on Windows without a drive letter

Someone might wonder why Windows drives are not mounted that way so they can access paths instead of characters. Why can't we access USB drive under C: USB?

The answer is that you can do that on Windows. Modern Windows versions allow you to mount storage devices according to the directory path. This option is available in the Disk Management tool. You just need to right click on the partition of a drive, select Change Drive Letters and Paths and then click Add . You can use the option Mount in the following empty NTFS folder so that the storage device has a directory path as on a Unix-like operating system.

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However, to do this, you must mount the drive to the directory path on the NTFS and NTFS file systems to be mounted to the drive letter.

Therefore, even if you have used all the drive letters from A to Z, you can still mount additional storage devices and access them on Windows. You are not limited to 26 drives on a modern Windows version.

In addition, you can also change the drive letter from Disk Management, but you cannot replace the C: drive to another character. Even if you replace the character D: into E: there may also be a problem.

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Why does Windows still use characters for drives?

If older systems use drive letters (like C :) from time immemorial and Windows can work without them, why do they still use the drive letter?

The reason is very simple and explains for many design decisions of Windows, which is backwards compatible. The first Windows versions must be compatible with MS-DOS software and modern Windows versions must be compatible with older Windows software. That's why they still use drive letters.

Technically, you can install Windows to C: not the system drive. You can set it to drive G: and have G: Windows, G: Users and G: Program Files folders. C: No longer is your main drive and this is officially supported by Windows. However, many Windows applications still assume you use the C: drive, so you'll have problems if you don't use the C: drive as the main drive when using these applications.

You may be wondering why Windows still displays the drive letter. File Explorer can hide them and only display words, System Drive or USB Flash Drive, but File Explorer has shown such a simple description and sometimes you want to know the drive letter. Many applications display paths like D: FolderFile.doc.

Sure, Microsoft can invest in compatible software that redirects all requests for C: to another path. But instead of throwing away the drive letters and spending a lot of time to fix things that will be broken so Microsoft chose to stick with the drive letters.