microsoft s obsession the c drive

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:

The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

During the install of Vista, the installer doesn't see it as the "D:" drive. It sees it as a partition. You're just going to have to live with it, or not use Vista.
"troma" wrote in message

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

It will install on the partition you select but it will determine drive letters for the machine independently of the selection made by XP when it was installed.
"troma" wrote in message

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

"troma" wrote in message

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

This is because Vista is installed on a primary partition and only one primary partition can be bootable (active) at a given instance. The booted primary partition "will" be the C: drive.
Live with it.
--
Regards,
Richard Urban MVP Windows Shell/User (using Vista 5384.4)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew half as much as you think you know, You would realize you don't know what you thought you knew.

"troma" wrote in message

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.

It has always been this way.
If you install to a Primary partition, then that partition will be C: when booted. If you install to an extended partition, then the drive letters will remain the same.
For example, I have 2 physical drives in my machine. My XP install is on the first logical drive of the extended partition of the first drive, so it is seen as drive E:. When booted into XP, the Vista partition - the first primary of the 2nd drive - is seen as D:. When booted into Vista, it's partition is seen as C:. XP is still seen as E;, but the C and D drive s are switched.
Primaries get assigned letters first, then secondaries. The booted Primary partition is always C: However, booted logical/extended do *not* become C:, so my example above of XP is always on Drive E:, even when XP is booted.
Mike

Richard Urban wrote:

"troma" wrote in message the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
This is because Vista is installed on a primary partition and only one primary partition can be bootable (active) at a given instance. The booted primary partition "will" be the C: drive.

No, Richard, that's not what Troma said or did. I've encountered exactly the same "phenomenom," for want of a better word.
Like Troma, I dual-boot between WinXP and Vista (64-bit versions of both, not that it matters, in this case). I have one physical hard drive in the PC, divided into one Primary partition and one Extended partition containing two logical drives. WinXPx64 has been installed on the Primary Active partition for over a year. WinXPx64 has always, as expected, listed this partition as C:, with the letters D: and E: assigned to the two logical drives in the Extended partition.
When I installed Vista64, I deliberately created a dual-boot by directing Vista64 to be installed on the first logical drive in the Extended partition (WinXPx64's D: drive). In planning the dual-boot, I had created and named the volume labels of the various partitions to ease identification during the installation of Vista64. The Primary active (bootable) partition, a.k.a. "C:," was labeled "WinXPx64," the first logical drive of the Extended partition, a.k.a. "D:," was labeled "Vista64B2," and the remaining logical drive, a.k.a. "E:," was labeled "Data." All went well with the installation, and I'm dual-booting using Vista's native boot manager.
When I boot into WinXPx64, the drive letters and volume labels remain as they were created, and as one would have expected, based on all earlier multi-boot scenarios using Microsoft's native boot loader.
However, when I boot into Vista, both Windows Explorer and the Disk Manager report the C: drive to be the volume (a logical drive in an Extended partition, remember) labeled "Vista64B2" and the D: drive to be the volume (the only Primary Active partition on the hard drive) labeled "WinXPx64." The drive letter for the "Data" volume remained unchanged. Only Vista's Boot Configuration files are on the Primary Active partition.
This (relabeling the partition containing the OS as "C:," rather than "hard-coding" C: to the Primary Active partition) is new behavior for a Microsoft OS. And, as Troma says, it's a harmless feature, but it is initially confusing to those of us who have habitually multi-boot Microsoft operating systems for many years.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

"troma" wrote in message

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.

Yes, it was installed to partition you pointed If you want to keep the same drive letter assigning you must run setup from current WinXP installation.
-- éÇÏÒØ ìÅÊËÏ (Igor Leyko) MS MVP Windows - Shell/User ipigl@redline.ru

Oops! Sorry about the incorrect time. (-:
-- Regards,
Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew as much as you think you know, You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"Richard Urban" wrote in message

Strange!
I installed Vista on a primary DOS partition (the 3rd partition on drive 0). When I boot into Vista, it "is" drive C:
The primary partition that Windows XP is on is tagged as "inactive" - and is not seen by the Vista operating system except within disk management.
Of course, I am using a 3rd party boot manager program. I never allow any Microsoft service to act as my boot manager. I like total control and Microsoft just does not give me that.
-- Regards,
Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew as much as you think you know, You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message Richard Urban wrote: "troma" wrote in message the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
This is because Vista is installed on a primary partition and only one primary partition can be bootable (active) at a given instance. The booted primary partition "will" be the C: drive.

No, Richard, that's not what Troma said or did. I've encountered exactly the same "phenomenom," for want of a better word.
Like Troma, I dual-boot between WinXP and Vista (64-bit versions of both, not that it matters, in this case). I have one physical hard drive in the PC, divided into one Primary partition and one Extended partition containing two logical drives. WinXPx64 has been installed on the Primary Active partition for over a year. WinXPx64 has always, as expected, listed this partition as C:, with the letters D: and E: assigned to the two logical drives in the Extended partition.
When I installed Vista64, I deliberately created a dual-boot by directing Vista64 to be installed on the first logical drive in the Extended partition (WinXPx64's D: drive). In planning the dual-boot, I had created and named the volume labels of the various partitions to ease identification during the installation of Vista64. The Primary active (bootable) partition, a.k.a. "C:," was labeled "WinXPx64," the first logical drive of the Extended partition, a.k.a. "D:," was labeled "Vista64B2," and the remaining logical drive, a.k.a. "E:," was labeled "Data." All went well with the installation, and I'm dual-booting using Vista's native boot manager.
When I boot into WinXPx64, the drive letters and volume labels remain as they were created, and as one would have expected, based on all earlier multi-boot scenarios using Microsoft's native boot loader.
However, when I boot into Vista, both Windows Explorer and the Disk Manager report the C: drive to be the volume (a logical drive in an Extended partition, remember) labeled "Vista64B2" and the D: drive to be the volume (the only Primary Active partition on the hard drive) labeled "WinXPx64." The drive letter for the "Data" volume remained unchanged. Only Vista's Boot Configuration files are on the Primary Active partition.
This (relabeling the partition containing the OS as "C:," rather than "hard-coding" C: to the Primary Active partition) is new behavior for a Microsoft OS. And, as Troma says, it's a harmless feature, but it is initially confusing to those of us who have habitually multi-boot Microsoft operating systems for many years.
--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Richard Urban wrote:

Strange!
I installed Vista on a primary DOS partition (the 3rd partition on drive 0). When I boot into Vista, it "is" drive C:
The primary partition that Windows XP is on is tagged as "inactive" - and is not seen by the Vista operating system except within disk management.
Of course, I am using a 3rd party boot manager program.

That would explain the differences you see.

I never allow any Microsoft service to act as my boot manager. I like total control and Microsoft just does not give me that.

How curious! I prefer to use Microsoft's native boot loaders, and avoid all 3rd party boot managers, because I don't feel that the 3rd-party apps give me the level of control I want, while the Microsoft tools give me precise control and easily editable text files for configuration. (Vista's BCDedit may make me rethink that position, obviously.)

--
Bruce Chambers
Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

troma wrote in news:EF119D05-FED6-42A9-AB94-C6797B990825@microsoft.com:

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

This may or may not be relevant. I dual booted Windows 98 and XP. Windows 98 is on C and XP was on D. I also have three other logical drives (E, F, & G) All five partitions are on one physical drive. I did a clean install of Vista (booted from CD). I picked the D Drive (with XP on it) for the installation. I was warned that there was a current installation on that drive and that it would put all that in a folder called "windows.old" I proceeded with the install. The drive letters came out right. Vista is on D. All the rest are where they're supposed to be. My boot menu offers me Windows (Vista), Previous version of Windows, Windows 98, and the Recovery Console. If I pick Windows 98, Windows 98 won't boot. If I pick Recovery Console, the Console comes up but my administrator password is no longer valid. If I pick "Previous Operating System" I get my old boot menu with XP, Windows 98, and Recovery Console. From there XP will start to boot and then quit. That doesn't bother me since I didn't expect XP to work anyway. And if I pick Windows 98 from that menu, 98 boots up just fine. Recovery Console just gives me a disk error.
But the drive letters are right... that's what the thread was about.
I've done all this on a mirrored drive, so I don't have anything to lose. Next thing I'm going to try is converting the Vista partition to Fat 32 so I can see it from within Windows 98. I also have a problem with all the permission issues. There's only one of me and I have three computers networked and I don't NEED permission to do whatever I want between them!
-- --- A dyslexic man walks into a bra ---

-- could anyone suggest in above problem as i have now for solution.on vista 64 c: drive and XP pro F drive . no multiboot. i manage to get back xp pro by using system recovery disc(XP disc) and it shoe xp on C: drive and vista on E : drive.How can i get dural boot ?
any advice appreciated.
bigscreen
"Menno Hershberger" wrote:

troma wrote in news:EF119D05-FED6-42A9-AB94-C6797B990825@microsoft.com:
I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?
This may or may not be relevant. I dual booted Windows 98 and XP. Windows 98 is on C and XP was on D. I also have three other logical drives (E, F, & G) All five partitions are on one physical drive. I did a clean install of Vista (booted from CD). I picked the D Drive (with XP on it) for the installation. I was warned that there was a current installation on that drive and that it would put all that in a folder called "windows.old" I proceeded with the install. The drive letters came out right. Vista is on D. All the rest are where they're supposed to be. My boot menu offers me Windows (Vista), Previous version of Windows, Windows 98, and the Recovery Console. If I pick Windows 98, Windows 98 won't boot. If I pick Recovery Console, the Console comes up but my administrator password is no longer valid. If I pick "Previous Operating System" I get my old boot menu with XP, Windows 98, and Recovery Console. From there XP will start to boot and then quit. That doesn't bother me since I didn't expect XP to work anyway. And if I pick Windows 98 from that menu, 98 boots up just fine. Recovery Console just gives me a disk error.
But the drive letters are right... that's what the thread was about.
I've done all this on a mirrored drive, so I don't have anything to lose. Next thing I'm going to try is converting the Vista partition to Fat 32 so I can see it from within Windows 98. I also have a problem with all the permission issues. There's only one of me and I have three computers networked and I don't NEED permission to do whatever I want between them!
-- --- A dyslexic man walks into a bra ---

Strange!
I installed Vista on a primary DOS partition (the 3rd partition on drive 0). When I boot into Vista, it "is" drive C:
The primary partition that Windows XP is on is tagged as "inactive" - and is not seen by the Vista operating system except within disk management.
Of course, I am using a 3rd party boot manager program. I never allow any Microsoft service to act as my boot manager. I like total control and Microsoft just does not give me that.
-- Regards,
Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner: If you knew as much as you think you know, You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"Bruce Chambers" wrote in message

Richard Urban wrote: "troma" wrote in message the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
This is because Vista is installed on a primary partition and only one primary partition can be bootable (active) at a given instance. The booted primary partition "will" be the C: drive.

No, Richard, that's not what Troma said or did. I've encountered exactly the same "phenomenom," for want of a better word.
Like Troma, I dual-boot between WinXP and Vista (64-bit versions of both, not that it matters, in this case). I have one physical hard drive in the PC, divided into one Primary partition and one Extended partition containing two logical drives. WinXPx64 has been installed on the Primary Active partition for over a year. WinXPx64 has always, as expected, listed this partition as C:, with the letters D: and E: assigned to the two logical drives in the Extended partition.
When I installed Vista64, I deliberately created a dual-boot by directing Vista64 to be installed on the first logical drive in the Extended partition (WinXPx64's D: drive). In planning the dual-boot, I had created and named the volume labels of the various partitions to ease identification during the installation of Vista64. The Primary active (bootable) partition, a.k.a. "C:," was labeled "WinXPx64," the first logical drive of the Extended partition, a.k.a. "D:," was labeled "Vista64B2," and the remaining logical drive, a.k.a. "E:," was labeled "Data." All went well with the installation, and I'm dual-booting using Vista's native boot manager.
When I boot into WinXPx64, the drive letters and volume labels remain as they were created, and as one would have expected, based on all earlier multi-boot scenarios using Microsoft's native boot loader.
However, when I boot into Vista, both Windows Explorer and the Disk Manager report the C: drive to be the volume (a logical drive in an Extended partition, remember) labeled "Vista64B2" and the D: drive to be the volume (the only Primary Active partition on the hard drive) labeled "WinXPx64." The drive letter for the "Data" volume remained unchanged. Only Vista's Boot Configuration files are on the Primary Active partition.
This (relabeling the partition containing the OS as "C:," rather than "hard-coding" C: to the Primary Active partition) is new behavior for a Microsoft OS. And, as Troma says, it's a harmless feature, but it is initially confusing to those of us who have habitually multi-boot Microsoft operating systems for many years.
--
Bruce Chambers
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Hmmm . . . my installation did NOT work as yours did. I created an NTFS partition and formatted it in XP where I assigned it a drive letter of "V." I then launched Vista Setup from within XP and chose "custom" install. I told it that I wanted it to install Vista on V:. It did. Now my drive letters are exactly the same whether I'm in XP or Vista. In both operating systems, XP is on "C:" and Vista is on "V:" so it looks as though they have "fixed it" before release. For anyone having this problem, I'd suggest assigning a drive letter to the Vista drive before installing Vista and then launching the Vista Setup from within the primary operating system.
On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:34:02 -0700, troma wrote:

the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

No, troma is right, the behavior is different. Even some MS employees I spoke with at WinHEC were surprised by this behavior.
I have a 64-bit system and I have 4 primary partitions. XP32, XP64, Vista32 and Vista64. When I am in XP32 and XP64, the driver letters appear in the same order - C:, D:, E:, F:. when I boot into either vista partition, they are different. When I boot into Vista32, they are in this order D:, E:, C:, F: and when I boot into Vista 64, the look like this, D:, E:, F:, C:.
That is if I installed vista by booting from the DVD. If I install Vista to the same primary partitions by runing setup from within XP, I get the same drive order as I as in XP (which is what most of us would expect to see).
This behavior is definitely different and violates the rule of "least surprise". It is seen to be harmless but when people are expecting certain partitions to always be ceretain drive letters regardless of which OS you've booted into, someone could accidently delete something from the wrong drive letter believing that it was a different one.
Beverly
"Mike" wrote in message

"troma" wrote in message the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
It has always been this way.
If you install to a Primary partition, then that partition will be C: when booted. If you install to an extended partition, then the drive letters will remain the same.
For example, I have 2 physical drives in my machine. My XP install is on the first logical drive of the extended partition of the first drive, so it is seen as drive E:. When booted into XP, the Vista partition - the first primary of the 2nd drive - is seen as D:. When booted into Vista, it's partition is seen as C:. XP is still seen as E;, but the C and D drive s are switched.
Primaries get assigned letters first, then secondaries. The booted Primary partition is always C: However, booted logical/extended do *not* become C:, so my example above of XP is always on Drive E:, even when XP is booted.
Mike

Yes, the drive letter assignment depends on how you install it. If you run setup from within XP it will use the drive letters that XP uses. If you install it by booting from DVD, it will always assign the Vista partition the drive letter C:. If you have 2 Vista partitions, they will both believe that they are drive C: when you are booted into them.
Beverly
"milleron" wrote in message

Hmmm . . . my installation did NOT work as yours did. I created an NTFS partition and formatted it in XP where I assigned it a drive letter of "V." I then launched Vista Setup from within XP and chose "custom" install. I told it that I wanted it to install Vista on V:. It did. Now my drive letters are exactly the same whether I'm in XP or Vista. In both operating systems, XP is on "C:" and Vista is on "V:" so it looks as though they have "fixed it" before release. For anyone having this problem, I'd suggest assigning a drive letter to the Vista drive before installing Vista and then launching the Vista Setup from within the primary operating system.
On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:34:02 -0700, troma troma@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

That wasn't the case with me. 'My settings
C: - XP D - Napster music files E - Documents (downloads go here in a Downloads folder) F - DVD-RW drive G VISTA! H - OS files for XP AND vista (thisd partition is only 10 gigs)
They are the same in Vista reading the XP drive as C and the Vista drive as G
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message

The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

if you install from within another OS instead of boot from dvd, it will use the correct drive letter.

mikeyhsd@sport.rr.com

"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

Hello! "mikeyhsd" wrote in message if you install from within another OS instead of boot from dvd, it will use the correct drive letter.
Is it possible to install Vista from Windows 98SE?
Thanks, Roman

it was from xp pro 32 to vista 64 so it can not be launched. look like no help if u mention of MS in bad way.well finally i did got both OS with multiboot as another clean install on different drive. Still drive letter change everytime i boot on different OS.
any solution from andy ? bcdedit/ vistapro boot -- bigscreen
"roman modic" wrote:

Hello! "mikeyhsd" wrote in message if you install from within another OS instead of boot from dvd, it will use the correct drive letter.
Is it possible to install Vista from Windows 98SE?
Thanks, Roman

XP positive, other OS not sure. XP for upgrade positive, other OS not sure. upgrade is not a good idea, vista is not ready for prime time.

mikeyhsd@sport.rr.com

"roman modic" wrote in message Hello! "mikeyhsd" wrote in message if you install from within another OS instead of boot from dvd, it will use the correct drive letter.
Is it possible to install Vista from Windows 98SE?
Thanks, Roman

Microsoft is requesting folks give the upgrade from xp to vista a try. "mikeyhsd" wrote in message XP positive, other OS not sure. XP for upgrade positive, other OS not sure. upgrade is not a good idea, vista is not ready for prime time.

mikeyhsd@sport.rr.com

"roman modic" wrote in message Hello! "mikeyhsd" wrote in message if you install from within another OS instead of boot from dvd, it will use the correct drive letter.
Is it possible to install Vista from Windows 98SE?
Thanks, Roman

Ah, I was wondering about that - I don't see the C: drive behavior that folks are complaining about, and your explanation makes sense. (I'm not saying that its *correct* behavior, just that it explains why I don't see this problem in my install, and other folks do.)
-Bruce
"Beverly Brown" wrote in message

Yes, the drive letter assignment depends on how you install it. If you run setup from within XP it will use the drive letters that XP uses. If you install it by booting from DVD, it will always assign the Vista partition the drive letter C:. If you have 2 Vista partitions, they will both believe that they are drive C: when you are booted into them.
Beverly
"milleron" wrote in message Hmmm . . . my installation did NOT work as yours did. I created an NTFS partition and formatted it in XP where I assigned it a drive letter of "V." I then launched Vista Setup from within XP and chose "custom" install. I told it that I wanted it to install Vista on V:. It did. Now my drive letters are exactly the same whether I'm in XP or Vista. In both operating systems, XP is on "C:" and Vista is on "V:" so it looks as though they have "fixed it" before release. For anyone having this problem, I'd suggest assigning a drive letter to the Vista drive before installing Vista and then launching the Vista Setup from within the primary operating system.
On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:34:02 -0700, troma troma@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
the point i was trying to get across was that if I select the D partition during setup windows should install to the Drive i select.
"The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into." - uhhh, I was performing a CLEAN INSTALL, the operating system I booted into was the Vista installation CD, vista setup listed my XP partition as the C drive. I partitioned and formated and started the install on what vista setup detected as the D drive.
But the Vista install is calling the second partition on my primary drive the C drive. When the primary partition is the "REAL" C drive.
This is NOT Normal, this is new with VISTA.
Dual booting with XP does not produce the same results. XP gets installed to the drive letter you select during a clean install.
Not harmful, but it is confusing.
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
The drive letters are assigned from the point of view of the OS you have booted into. The drive you see as C: from within XP may appear with a different letter from within Vista. This is normal and not harmful.
"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

I did a clean install that was launched from within XP and have not observed this phenomenon.

-- --------------------------------- --- -- - Posted with NewsLeecher v3.5 Final Web @ http://www.newsleecher.com/?usenet ------------------- ----- ---- -- -

I can't get it to run from within WinXP, receive "not valid Win32 application" when running setup.exe
Laters, Dick
"casual observer" wrote in message

I did a clean install that was launched from within XP and have not observed this phenomenon.

-- --------------------------------- --- -- - Posted with NewsLeecher v3.5 Final Web @ http://www.newsleecher.com/?usenet ------------------- ----- ---- -- -

I did the same exact thing that milleron did and all drive letters remained as I had assigned them when in XP before the install of Vista as well. --
(¯`·._.·Ecat·._.·´¯) HP a1230n Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 1 Gig RAM Radeon X700

Hmmm . . . my installation did NOT work as yours did. I created an NTFS partition and formatted it in XP where I assigned it a drive letter of "V." I then launched Vista Setup from within XP and chose "custom" install. I told it that I wanted it to install Vista on V:. It did. Now my drive letters are exactly the same whether I'm in XP or Vista. In both operating systems, XP is on "C:" and Vista is on "V:" so it looks as though they have "fixed it" before release. For anyone having this problem, I'd suggest assigning a drive letter to the Vista drive before installing Vista and then launching the Vista Setup from within the primary operating system.

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

i got the same problem. as i have xp pro (32) i can not virtually set up launch from there as i did the other pc. thus i have to do clean instal on seperate patrition Drive F' . now vista take over on (C:) Drive and XP Pro on F Drive . on the other Pc i got Dual boot as microsoft and earlier version. But now i lost Dual boot . Can you i advise me on how you did back dual boot please??
Thanks in advance -- bigscreen
"troma" wrote:

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?

I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:

Yes, it is somewhat annoying, as you can't share apps on C: between the OS's. I expect MS have done that on purpose. I now have two copies of every app, both on C: depending on which OS you're in at the time! Massive waste of disk space!
The Performance Rating is based on C: only as well. Great if you don't use partitions!

if you install by booting from DVD, VISTA steals the "C" drive letter. if you install from another running os, then VISTA recognizes the drive letters and assigns it correctly.
might file a bug/suggestion report with microsoft of your displeasure with this situation.

mikeyhsd@sport.rr.com

"troma" wrote in message I did a clean install of beta2.
i have xpp installed on c: drive.
vista on the second partition of my primary drive.
during setup i partitioned and formatted the D: partition. expecting vista to be installed to the D drive.
but after setup vista is on a c: partition. and it shows XPP on D: and i think you can't change the drive letters of a system or boot partition.
if I boot into XP it is on the c: and it shows vista on E:
hope this is will be resolved before RTM.
no biggie, but it would be nice if I could keep the same drive letters for the same partitions\drives in different OS's.
or even better if you had the option to select a drive letter for each drive including CD\ DVD devices during Windows setup
i.e.
HDD0 Partition0 = C: DVD = D: HDD0 Partition1 = V: DVD-RW = W: HDD1 Partition 0 = X:

I don't need to hear that this is by design, or to use 3rd party partitioning software...
What is Microsoft's obsession with the C: drive?