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On Windows 10, I wanted to map drive letters to local folders. I used subst initially, but then I found out that deleted files from the mapped drives would just disappear, rather than going to the Recycle Bin. I followed the instructions from Tony and others here, and got the mapped drives to work with the Recycle Bin, using a .reg file. Which is great. Thanks to everyone who contributed!

But I would also like to change the drive name, aka the drive label, on the mapped drives. Currently Windows just picks up the name of the root drive. For example, my C: drive name is "1TB SSD". I mapped the P: drive to C:\File Server\Photos, and I would like the P: drive label to be "Photos", but instead it shows up as "1TB SSD".

When I right click on the P: drive in windows explorer, and go to "Rename", I get the message "Invalid drive Label The volume label is not valid. Please enter a valid volume label." I don't get this error message when I rename the "real" drives (C: D: etc.), only when I try to rename the drives that were mapped from local folders.

I've googled around and tried several things. The latest was adding "VolumeLabel" to the registry entry. I was hopeful that that might do it, but no luck.

Here's what my mapping looks like in the .reg file:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\DOS Devices]  
"P:"="\\??\\C:\\File Server\\Photos"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{GUID}]

"RelativePath"="P:\"

"Category"=dword:00000004

"Name"="PhotosN"

"DefaultLabel"="PhotosD"

"VolumeLabel"="PhotosV"

I would greatly appreciate it if someone has an answer for this! :)

DavidPostill
  • 162,382
Nathaniel Tanner
  • 21

1 Answers1

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I have a drive like your drive P: set in the registry in the DOS Devices like you do. I loosely followed this Wikipedia article to give this drive a label: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUBST

For drive C: and drive P:, I put in the registry:

  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\C\DefaultLabel\
  • and
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons\P\DefaultLabel\
  • with their (Default) value equal the label name I want them to be. It seems I had to do C drive too, not just the P drive. I set C drive's to "OS", and P drive's to "POPCORN".

Then using cmd.exe, I cleared the C drive with LABEL C:, and put an empty label in there.

Then I refresh File Explorer (F5), and the new names showed up. Seems to work ok.

Mafu Josh
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