What is the most common external drive letter?

[jellyfish]

I know this topic is probably not the right place to post this, but it seems to get the most views/posts. I am trying to write a small program in BASIC in which it will be an interface to launch external apps from. It seems that to use the run command, I need to supply the absolute path of the progam to be run. My question is: what is the most common drive letter for users USB drive. (on home PC) Mine is E:\\

[Darkbee]

It sounds like a really bad idea to hard code the drive letter. I realize that this is a personal program for you but couldn't you make it so that the program either accepts a command line parameter for the drive letter, allows the drive letter to be set in an external configuration file or prompts the user for the drive letter. Once you have that, then you could simply generate a string of the full path with the appropriate drive letter.

From my point of view, all of the drive letters that you have specified are usually occupied.. I have two hard drive partitions C and D, and then two optical drives E and F, leaving G and beyond to assign to external drives.

[bugmenot]

I agree with the above
Considering what drive letter is the most typical for a USB device is the worst approach when thinking about developing a portable application

[gp_hbk]

Maybe I'm dumb but I don't understand why a program can't be portable if it is designed to just launch other programs.

[jellyfish]

I totally agree with you both but i am just learning. I mean really "just". Is there any way to use a wildcard * or something similiar. Any light would be appreciated. Nevermind all. I figured it out

[insert_nick]

See if this can help.

[FarCry3r]

yep, just put the app you want to launch in the launcher directory. If you're using VB to create the launcher, the command to launch the app should be like this:

Code: Select all

Shell App.Path & "\App_To_Run_Folder\EXE_File_To_Run.exe"

[teobromina]

Mine is E:\\

In that case I do not understand why there is no vote for "E" until now...

OK. Mine is "E" as well. But my method is to use the Start/Administrative Tools / / Disk Administration Tool (translation to English may vary) to change the letters of my disks, thus preserving the "E" letter for my pendrive. For instance I use the letter "S" for the "Stock" partition, and so on.

*JT.

[Dormouse]

I have a variable number of HDs (depending on how many usb/firewire ones I connect), 2 optical drives, a card reader that takes up a number of drive letters and a variable number of usb sticks attached. Anythiong that hardcodes to a letter won't work unless it is the C HD.

[LPChip]

Why not create a small batch file that does the following:

subst z: .

it will create a Z: drive from the current relative path. If you place this in the root of your usbdrive, you can use it to create a Z: driveletter.

Another batch file with:

subst /d z:

will remove that link again.

I even found out, that in MS-Dos mode (or cmd) you can even link to 1: to 9: and in a batch file, you can run commands from there too. Only downside is: windows does not recognises these numberic driveletters at all, meaning that you cannot access the programs from there, but only execute them.

[Geemonster]

I've got several USB ports 2 at the front USB1 and a few USB2's at the back,so im not 100%