The Windows operating system – at least Windows XP – is not offering name editing for DVD drives. At least not the easy way. You might know that it is possible to change the drive letter of a hard drive in Windows by right-clicking its icon and selecting Properties. The very same option is grayed out for DVD drives and probably other drive types as well.

Some solutions are floating around on the Internet that involve Registry editing which is something that most inexperienced users do not want to do. A far better solution is a small program called Drive Namer which has been requested and completed at the Donation Coder forum a long time ago.

Drive Namer is a small portable application for the Windows operating system that can change the name of any drive letter easily. It has been primarily designed to work with DVD drives and other drive types with locked name editing. The program requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 to run but does not have any other requirements.

It will display the small form upon startup that provides a pull down menu for all drive letters of the computer system including those not in use. Changing the drive letter of a DVD drive would simply involve selecting the correct drive letter of the DVD drive from the menu and entering a name in the form next to it. A click on the SET button will enable the name on the system which can be checked in Windows Explorer.

Windows Explorer Before

Windows Explorer After

The names can be reset by selecting a drive letter and pressing the Reset button in the software program. The software does not have to be running after the names of the DVD drives have been edited.

The original location of Drive Namer is no longer providing the file download for the application. You can download it below right from the Ghacks server. The download has a size of 10 Kilobytes. There is also a download link at the Donation Coder website pointing to a file host. Could go down in the future which is why we provide the download mirror as well.

drive namer

It can happen that the uninstallation or repair of a .net Framework installation fails which can have the effect that a new installation wont succeed either. Manually removing the leftovers to be able to install the framework anew is a complex process.

A far better solution would be to run a cleanup tool that will remove all traces of the Microsoft .net Framework from the computer system.

Aaron Stebner’s (via Raymond) Microsoft .net Framework Cleanup Tool is that software program. The portable application scans the computer system for installed .net Framework versions.

It will display them in a list with the option to uninstall a specific .net Framework version or all of them from the computer system. The software developer points out that his application should be used as a last resort if the regular installation or uninstallation of the Microsoft .net Framework fails on the computer.