USB drive letters and mapped drive letter issues

In Windows XP, I always had problems with clients who wanted to use USB
drives in a corporate environment where drives are mapped via scripts to low
drive letters. USB drives always took the next available PHYSICAL drive
letter, even if it was already in use by a mapped drive. You have to manually
go into Drive Management and change the drive letter to get the USB drive to
show up. After that, it will remember the drive letter, but there were no end
to the complaints about the process.

It appears this "problem" still exists in Windows Vista. It was in Beta 2,
and I just loaded up the July CTP hoping it was fixed. I mapped a network
share to E: (my next available drive letter), plugged in a USB drive...AND
THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED!

I can't believe this issue still exists in Vista. I really hope this is just
a fluke in this build, and the issue has been resolved in non-public betas.
It seems such a simple issue for the hardware to check what drive letters are
actually available, or if mapped drives exists, to pop a prompt asking what
drive letter you want.

PLEASE look into this issue, as it does cause a lot of trouble in the
corporate world where drives are usually not mapped from Z: backwards, but
from F: on up.

Truly sorry for the multiple postings....the system kept telling me the post
did not go through, so I kept trying....apparently it lied.


"TechDesign" wrote:

> In Windows XP, I always had problems with clients who wanted to use USB
> drives in a corporate environment where drives are mapped via scripts to low
> drive letters. USB drives always took the next available PHYSICAL drive
> letter, even if it was already in use by a mapped drive. You have to manually
> go into Drive Management and change the drive letter to get the USB drive to
> show up. After that, it will remember the drive letter, but there were no end
> to the complaints about the process.
>
> It appears this "problem" still exists in Windows Vista. It was in Beta 2,
> and I just loaded up the July CTP hoping it was fixed. I mapped a network
> share to E: (my next available drive letter), plugged in a USB drive...AND
> THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED!
>
> I can't believe this issue still exists in Vista. I really hope this is just
> a fluke in this build, and the issue has been resolved in non-public betas.
> It seems such a simple issue for the hardware to check what drive letters are
> actually available, or if mapped drives exists, to pop a prompt asking what
> drive letter you want.
>
> PLEASE look into this issue, as it does cause a lot of trouble in the
> corporate world where drives are usually not mapped from Z: backwards, but
> from F: on up.