The Free Software Files

Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that couldn’t be sure which drive letter would be assigned to your USB flash drive when you plugged it into your PC?

Well, as a PortableApps user (more on which later), I have. So much so, in fact, that I recently spent quite a bit of time looking for a solution. I tinkered with the autorun file on the USB drive and tried a couple of autoexec tricks but all to no avail. Then I happened to find my way to the USBDLM page.

This is a nifty little utility which can be installed as a Windows service and can then ensure that one, or more, dedicated drive letters are used when you plug in a USB drive.

This utility comes in the form of a zip archive (a windows installer MSI is available for network installation) and is free for private and educational use.

Installation is pretty straight-forward:

• unzip the file to your hard drive;
• copy the enclosed USBDLM_sample.ini configuration file to USBDLM.ini;
• open this file and change it to at least specify the drive letter(s) you want to use for your USB flash drive(s) – keep the chosen drive letter(s) high in the alphabet to prevent conflict with other devices, especially if you’re on a network;
• there are more options which are well documented but which I saw no reason to employ;
• then save the edited configuration file and run the included _install.cmd script.

Thereafter, when you plug in your USB flash drive it will be assigned the drive letter you have specified.

Sigh. Now I can assign any drive letter I want to my USB flash drive it’s safe to use that drive letter when setting up a backup, configuring a virus scan, or whatever. An excellent little utility!

Final Score: An easy 5 out of 5!