Abb Drive Window

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Florentina Holcombe

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 1:03:44 PM8/3/24

to spirtirapar

I was wondering if there is a shortcut to getting to the main VeraCrypt drive window, where the drive letters are assigned. For example, Alt+X exits the program, Alt+M mounts a drive, etc. Is there a shortcut like that?

Don't think there's anything integrated into VeraCrypt, but if you have a shortcut to VeraCrypt on your Desktop, right click on it and left click 'Properties'. Put the cursor into the 'Shortcut key:' box, press Ctrl and Alt keys plus a number/letter key, left click 'OK', then that key combination will open the VeraCrypt main window. (This is a standard Windows procedure.)

This doesn't depend on any mouse movements or clicks, thus was easy to add to a macro. I added the macro to a hotkey (in the macro program, not VeraCrypt), and a simple keypress mounts the drive. Another macro simply sends Ctrl+Alt+v to unmount the drive. I mapped each of these macros to a button on my programmable remote and it works flawlessly.

The command.exe will auto-complete the line with the tab key, so it knows where I'm at. It just doesn't print to screen the result or actually get me there. This problem exists for the network drives as well.

Going back to the days of DOS, there's a separate "current directory" for each drive. cd D:\foldername changes D:'s current directory to the foldername specified, but does not change the fact that you're still working on the C: drive.

You're not using a Unix or Linux shell program. The cd command in Microsoft's command interpreter doesn't behave as the cd commands in such shells do. It behaves somewhat differently. In particular, it doesn't always change directory. In Unix and Linux shells, cd only ever sets the working directory. In Microsoft's command interpreter, cd sometimes queries it. There's no separate pwd command, so cd does two jobs.

If you give it no arguments, or an argument that is just a drive letter and a colon without a path, then it reports the current directory instead of changing it. If you give it no arguments, it reports the current directory of the current drive of the command interpreter process. If you give it only a drive letter and a colon as an argument, it reports the command interpreter process' current directory of that drive. Each drive has its own current directory in the command interpreter. (This is a fiction maintained by the run-time libraries for Microsoft's and several other vendors' implementations of various programming languages. Win32 itself doesn't work this way.)

So when you gave it d: as an argument, it reported the the command interpreter process' current directory on drive D to you, which happened to be D:\. If you'd given it no arguments at all, it would have reported C:\ to you.

If you want the cd command to always be in set mode and never be in query mode you need to add the /D option to it. This forces the command to always be in set mode, and also extends it so that it changes the current drive as well as changing a drive's current directory. (In other words, it works more like the underlying Win32 API actually does.)

Afraid this is incorrect. It's true from the days of DOS, but the command line in Windows NT and later is not DOS. In the command line that everyone uses today, you have the /D switch. The /d switch will change the current directory of the specified drive AND change to that directory. The /d switch must be specified before the path. For example:

Dev Drive builds on ReFS technology to employ targeted file system optimizations and provide more control over storage volume settings and security, including trust designation, antivirus configuration, and administrative control over what filters are attached.

When updating to the latest Windows 11 release, you may need an additional reboot before the Dev Drive feature becomes available. If you are working in a business enterprise environment, your security administrator will need to Configure Dev Drive security policy in order to enable Dev Drive.

Dev Drive is intended only for key developer scenarios and any custom settings will still be covered by Group Policy settings in Business or Enterprise work environments. Learn more about how to Configure Dev Drive security policy.

To format a Dev Drive on the new free space, specify the Label (drive name), Drive Letter, and Size allocation. The maximum size will be the amount of free space you allocated in the previous step, the minimum size for a Dev Drive is 50GB.

As an alternative to using Windows Settings, there are two options for creating Dev Drive storage volumes from the command line. Both options require that you open the command line as an Administrator. You must be a member of the Admin group to format a hard drive. These command line formatting methods may be preferred when creating multiple Dev Drives or as an admin for multiple machines.

A Storage Volume specifies how data is stored on the file system, via directories and files, in a particular format. Windows uses NTFS for the system drive and, by default, for most non-removable drives. The Resilient File System (ReFS) is a newer Microsoft file system format, designed to maximize data availability, scale efficiently to large data sets across diverse workloads, and provide data integrity with resiliency to corruption. It seeks to address an expanding set of storage scenarios and establish a foundation for future innovations.

The Dev Drive utilizes ReFS enabling you to initialize a storage volume specifically for development workloads, providing faster performance, and customizable settings that are optimized for development scenarios. ReFS contains several file system specific optimizations to improve the performance of key developer scenarios.

A package cache is the global folder location used by applications to store files for installed software. These source files are needed when you want to update, uninstall, or repair the installed software. Visual Studio is one such application that stores a large portion of its data in the Package Cache.

Npm cache (NodeJS): Create an npm cache directory in your Dev Drive, e.g. D:\packages\npm, then set a global environment variable npm_config_cache to that path, e.g. setx /M npm_config_cache D:\packages\npm. If you have already installed NodeJS on your machine, move the contents of %AppData%\npm-cache to this directory. (On some systems the npm cache may be in %LocalAppData%\npm-cache). Learn more in the npm docs: npm-cache and npm config: cache.

NuGet global-packages folder: The NuGet global-packages folder is used by dotnet, MSBuild, and Visual Studio. Create a user specific NuGet directory in your CopyOnWrite (CoW) filesystem. For example: D:\\.nuget\packages. Use one of the following ways to change the global-packages folder from the default location to your newly created folder (to manage the globally installed packages):

To verify the global-packages folder, run the dotnet nuget locals command: dotnet nuget locals global-packages --list. The restore will install and download packages into the new path. The default NuGet global-packages folder can be deleted. Learn more in the NuGet docs: Managing the global packages, cache, and temp folders.

vcpkg cache: Create a vcpkg cache directory in your Dev Drive, e.g. D:\packages\vcpkg, then set a global environment variable VCPKG_DEFAULT_BINARY_CACHE to that path, e.g. setx /M VCPKG_DEFAULT_BINARY_CACHE D:\packages\vcpkg. If you have already installed packages, move the contents of %LOCALAPPDATA%\vcpkg\archives or %APPDATA%\vcpkg\archives to this directory. Learn more in the vcpkg docs: vcpkg Binary Caching.

Pip cache (Python): Create a pip cache directory in your Dev Drive, e.g. D:\packages\pip, then set a global environment variable PIP_CACHE_DIR to that path, e.g. setx /M PIP_CACHE_DIR D:\packages\pip. If you have already restored pip packages and Wheels on your machine, move the contents of %LocalAppData%\pip\Cache to this directory. Learn more in the pip docs: pip caching and see StackOverflow to Change directory of pip cache on Linux?.

Cargo cache (Rust): Create a Cargo cache directory in your Dev Drive, e.g. D:\packages\cargo, then set a global environment variable CARGO_HOME to that path, e.g. setx /M CARGO_HOME D:\packages\cargo. If you have already restored Cargo packages on your machine, move the contents of %USERPROFILE%\.cargo to this directory. Learn more in the Cargo docs: Cargo Environmental Variables.

Maven cache (Java): Create a Maven cache directory in your Dev Drive, e.g. D:\packages\maven, then set a global environment variable MAVEN_OPTS to add a configuration setting to that path, e.g. setx /M MAVEN_OPTS "-Dmaven.repo.local=D:\packages\maven %MAVEN_OPTS%". Move the contents of %USERPROFILE%\.m2 to this directory. Learn more in the Maven docs and see StackOverflow for How to specify an alternate location for the .m2 folder or settings.xml permanently?.

Gradle cache (Java): Create a Gradle cache directory in your Dev Drive, for example, D:\packages\gradle. Then, set a global environment variable GRADLE_USER_HOME to point to that path, for example, use setx /M GRADLE_USER_HOME "D:\packages\gradle" in the command line to set it system-wide. After setting this variable, Gradle will use the specified directory (D:\packages\gradle) for its caches and configuration files. If you have existing Gradle files, move the contents of %USERPROFILE%\.gradle to this new directory. For more detailed information, you can refer to the Gradle documentation and explore community resources like StackOverflow for tips on managing Gradle configurations and cache directories.

Security and trust are important considerations when working with project files. Typically, there is a tradeoff between performance and security. Using a Dev Drive places control over this balance in the hands of developers and security administrators, with a responsibility for choosing which filters are attached and the settings for Microsoft Defender Antivirus scans.