Hi William--
This is done by the bios and it's done when you run setup from restart
rather than the XP desktop. For some hardware
On a dual boot if you run the Vista setup from the XP desktop, your drive
letters will not change. If you run the setup from a restart, then the bios
will dictate and change your drive letters as you've seen. You also have
noticed by now, I imagine, that when you are on the XP boot, that the
letters are seen as before you dual booted, and on the Vista boot the new
configuration is there.
Why this happens may better be explained by someone else, but we know that
it does.
A few points and then a possible "fix" if you feel you need to.
1) You can access the XP desktop, and its files and folders from the Vista
desktop by simply typing in the run box or a combination addressbar/run box
that you make in your taskbar (by right clicking
taskbar>toolbar>address>unlock>hold down left mouse and slide seam to the
left to open it) C:\Documents and Settings [if C:\was the XP drive or
whatever letter]\William's XP Profile\Desktop. This saves time and space
because unless you want to copy files and folders from the XP desktop to the
Vista desktop or from XP folder to Vista folder, (for convenience) you don't
have to.
2) I've noticed that when I'm on the Vista desktop if I open a ***notepad
from my XP boot via my shortcut, it will not let me save it and close until
I rename it with my Vista pathway somewhere such as E:\Users\My Vista
Profile\Documents or another folder besides documents
3) You can search here on System Restore or volsnap.sys and read the clever
workaround that Michael from Chapel Hill, Colin Barnhorst, and Mark
Vandenberg have explained well that Bit Locker encryption or other means of
hiding the Vista drive from the XP drive confers protection for Vista
restore points when you boot to XP.
4) It used not to be a factor because up until a few interim builds ago,
specifically with 5472, I simply burned the ISO and the setup appeared on
the XP desktop ready to rock and roll and the drive letters didn't change.
When 5472 was released on July 17, 2006 10AM PDT, it gave me a false errror
that I needed a new IDE controller to insall Vista (MSFT has this glitch;
they know about it, and they have false information via the Update Advisor
as well-- a lot of it on a lot of boxes that they don't want to fix because
that might decrease the number of new computers they will push out by
telling people they need them when they don't and it might cost them sales
of OEM preloades).
Every interim build since then from including 5728 and I'm sure on Friday
5743, has required my machines to run setup from a restart and changed the
drive letter because running from the XP Desktop produces a false "setup
cannot run because you need a new IDE controller error" and it runs
perfectly from a restart.
***How you can *try to change the drive letters*** (Do A Complete Backup
First/or At Least set a restore point)
1) Right clicking the drive in diskmanagement *will not work.
Open your registry and find the key below. If the key does not already exist
then create it.
Within the main key create a new sub-key with a single letter representing
the drive letter of the drive to be modified. (e.g. [HKEY...\DriveIcons\D])
Within the drive letter key create another sub-key called "DefaultIcon"
(e.g. [HKEY...\DriveIcons\D\DefaultIcon]) and set the "(Default)" value to
equal the fully qualified name of the icon file. If the file contains more
that one icon follow it with a comma and the zero-based index of the icon
(e.g. "c:\icons\myicons.dll,4").
Create another sub-key within the drive letter key called "DefaultLabel"
(e.g. [HKEY...\DriveIcons\D\DefaultLabel]) and set it's "(Default)" value to
equal the label for the drive letter (e.g. "My ZIP Drive").
For example: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Software
Microsoft
Windows
CurrentVersion
Explorer
DriveIcons
D
DefaultIcon
(Default) = c:\icons\myicons.dll,4
DefaultLabel
(Default) = My ZIP Drive
You may need to restart Windows for the change to take effect, or press F5
to refresh My Computer.
Note: The "DefaultLabel" value only works with Windows 2000 and higher.
Registry Settings
System Key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
DriveIcons]
Value Name: Default
Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Good luck and hth,
CH
