Windows 7 doesn't show Vista Drive

You may not be able to see Windows Vista volume via Windows 7 beta. A simple work around will make your lifer easier... just assign drive letter to it

Firstly ... Wish you all a Very Happy New Year 2009.

MS released its next successor of ill reputed Windows Vista in form of Windows 7 beta on 09-January 2008.Since last several months there was lot of talk about project Vienna and leak of this product on pirated sites. Finally Windows 7 saw a light of release and its actual download starts from 10 Jan 2009.

I downloaded the 64 bit version of Windows 7 ( Windows 6.1.7000). A 3.15 GB download took more than 10 hours to download. I burned the DVD from ISO file and booted my existing Vista PC with this DVD.After successful installation , I greeted by Betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) clad desktop and it was my first tryst with Windows 7.

As usual I started exploring Windows 7 and in background of my mind , I was comparing it vis a vis with Vista. Lot of improvements in explorer shell , improved task bar , control panel impressed me. The most noticeable difference I observed was “responsive” factor. Windows 7 appears to be more responsive than Vista.

So while I was comparing Windows 7 with Vista, I thought why not compare the directory structure of both of the OS. So I decided to open Vista's Windows folder.
To my utmost surprise there was no vista drive in Computer. Though all other drives were visible , Vista OS drive was missing.

So I right clicked on Computer , selected Manage option. Here I selected Disk management. Again to my surprise , Vista drive was very much showing as one of the partition.
To investigate further , I right clicked on Vista drive to see its property. Here I notice the volume label unusual. The Volume label was
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\\?\Volume{373C080B-E1B1-11DD-9547-806E6F6E6963}\
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I also noticed that there was no drive letter assigned to this volume. So tried to assigned a drive letter. The moment I assigned the drive letter , this volume label changed to Vista drives volume label at its own.

So my problem get solved. Now Vista drive in appearing in Computer too. So bottom line , IF you are not able to see Vista drive via Windows 7 , just assign a drive letter to it through Disk manager.
Keep Exploring Windows 7