Show drive letters before drive names — via Winaero

Registry change

Double-click a .reg file and confirm to merge it. Right-click → Edit first if you want to read it, which is always a good idea with any .reg file from the internet.

Apply

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: Show drive letters before drive names

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"ShowDriveLettersFirst"=dword:00000004

Undo

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Oddbyte.Me: undo Show drive letters before drive names

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"ShowDriveLettersFirst"=dword:00000000

Same thing from a command prompt

Run in a normal (non-admin) Command Prompt or Terminal.

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v "ShowDriveLettersFirst" /t REG_DWORD /d 4 /f

Undo:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v "ShowDriveLettersFirst" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Values: 0 = letters after names (default), 1 = network drive letters first only, 2 = hide all letters, 4 = all letters first. A 2025 forum report says recent builds may ignore it for mapped network drives.