My Scripts and Tips

Ever noticed how Windows Explorer, by default, shows the drive letter after the label. For example:

\\longservername.subdomain.domain\AllOurData M:

The problem with this is that in some dialogs you can’t see the drive letter. Wouldn’t it be better if it did it the other way around:

M: \\longservername.subdomain.domain\AllOurData

Here’s how you can change that using group policy. First you need a custom Group Policy template file. Group Policy template files have a .ADM extension. Please see the text at the bottom of this post for an example.

To add the template do the following:

• Edit the Group Policy to be modified (or create a new one)
• Expand Computer Configuration
• Right click Administrative Templates and select Add/Remove Templates
• Select the template file to add

The template will add an entry under Administrative Templates called Customisations. Under that you will see another called Explorer Settings. If you click on that you won’t see anything in the right hand pane. That’s because you need to change a filter to view this setting. Do the following:

• On the menu select View and then Filtering
• Untick “Only show policy settings that can be fully managed”

You should now see an entry in the right hand pane. Select the option you want (for example, “Show all drive letters before the label”).

If you don’t want to use Group Policy then you will need to come up with some other way of setting the entry in the registry. The registry key is
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. The setting is a DWORD called ShowDriveLettersFirst. Values are:

0
1
2
4

Setting 0 gives letters after the label (the default)
Setting 1 gives network letters before the lable
Setting 2 will mean no drive letters
Setting 4 will give all drive letters before the label

You can download the administrative template from here –> ShowDriveLettersFirst.zip