Hide dvd drive on Windows 7?

What exactly is this for?

I want to hide those two "cd drive" when they're unused.

So remove the drive letter in disk management or disable them in device manager.

Thing is, if I do that they will never show up even if it's inserted with cd/dvd or mounted. Windows 7 default behavior was hiding it until it's occupied or mounted. ;_;
Searching in group policy editor yield no result too, looks like it got to do with registry.

Thing is, if I do that they will never show up even if it's inserted with cd/dvd or mounted. Windows 7 default behavior was hiding it until it's occupied or mounted. ;_;

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That hasn't been my experience.....

Weird, I never noticed it until you mentioned it. My DVD drives are hidden unless I have a disc inserted. Try right clicking in that area and see if show all folders is checked.

Squall-Leonhart said:

That hasn't been my experience.....

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Nor mine. My single DVD+RW drive always shows in "My Computer" or anywhere else that would show the drives associated with my PC, whether it has a disc in it or not.

Edit: Okay, in Explorer, they aren't showing up, but, unless they have a disc in them, it makes sense that they shouldn't. I'm not sure how you changed this (maybe installing/messing with certain virtual drives can cause this?), but why does it bother you that they show up?

My DVD drive always shows up in My Computer too under "Devices with Removable Storage". It also shows a floppy drive A even though I don't have any floppy drive connected.

Yes, but under Explorer, it's different than that. By default, it won't show any CD/DVD/removable media drives unless it has data in it. He somehow got his Windows 7 installation to show them even when they have no media in them, and wants to return it to default behavior, but doesn't know how. I'm not sure why it really matters, but that's not my decision to make.

As far as I know, floppy drives will show unless you either have it disabled or set to not installed in the BIOS, or remove it from the device manager.

n_w95482 said:

Weird, I never noticed it until you mentioned it. My DVD drives are hidden unless I have a disc inserted. Try right clicking in that area and see if show all folders is checked.

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Nope it doesn't...

Lord Zedeck said:

Nor mine. My single DVD+RW drive always shows in "My Computer" or anywhere else that would show the drives associated with my PC, whether it has a disc in it or not.

Edit: Okay, in Explorer, they aren't showing up, but, unless they have a disc in them, it makes sense that they shouldn't. I'm not sure how you changed this (maybe installing/messing with certain virtual drives can cause this?), but why does it bother you that they show up?

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I think it's becaues I'm playing around with ntregopt (a registry defragmenter) ;_; I just feel like tidying up the explorer, and am curious how this done as I can't find the answer after searching around.

Registry defragmenters do not work.

Well I was just curious and ready to reinstall if anything bad happens (but thankfully only this and messed up icons on desktop is the damage).
I've tested all sort of various random program in windows 7 for a while, I guess it has become like a hobby. :heh:

Mine was never hidden by default in Windows 7, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Nor do I see any reason in the first place to hide the CD drives, but that's up to you.

Zedeck said:

As far as I know, floppy drives will show unless you either have it disabled or set to not installed in the BIOS, or remove it from the device manager.

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Yeah, that's true. It's also very annoying when you accidentally open A: instead of C:, and then it goes to search for the Floppy which is obviously not existent.

Are you sure? All my friends have it hidden by default. :/
And exactly what you said, sometimes I accidentally click the cd drive and the will open cause it assume i'm trying to burn cd (happen a lot on vista).

I just turn off the burning feature of windows, now it's more of aesthetic problem...

Weird, Explorer is showing both my DVD drive and floppy drive as well.

Not like I really care though

nanaya said:

Are you sure? All my friends have it hidden by default. :/
And exactly what you said, sometimes I accidentally click the cd drive and the will open cause it assume i'm trying to burn cd (happen a lot on vista).

I just turn off the burning feature of windows, now it's more of aesthetic problem...

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I've installed Windows 7 multiple times on different computers and not once have I seen those drives been set to invisible automatically. So yes, I'm sure. Which is why I don't know how this occurred to you or your friends, because I've never witnessed this before.

I'm not sure if this will work, but you can set a group policy to normally hide the Floppy Drive, it might be the same for CD Drives, so you could give that a try. The drives will be accessible still, but they just won't show in Explorer.

^ what's the policy specific name? I've browsed it before but didn't find anything like you said or i just missed it.

That didn't do the trick unfortunately