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There are isolated problems with current patches, but they are well-known and documented on this site. |
Tonight I will ask the pondering question of why…. why can’t Microsoft/Windows provide a native tool that properly partitions drives? If you want to
[See the full post at: Why can’t Windows provide their own drive partition tool?]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady
If there is an OEM partition in the way it won’t expand the partition. If there is nothing to the right to the space where you want to expand, native tools will work. Otherwise, you will need a third party tool. Just hit this like two weeks ago at the office.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady
And that brings up another annoyance: some of my computers have a “recovery partition” (with no drive letter) to the right of the Windows (C:) partition. Why the heck would they do this? All it does is get in the way if you want to upgrade to a bigger drive.
Yes, I know, you can create a new letter drive with the unassigned space to the right, but why should this be made necessary? OEM, just put the bloody “recovery partition” to the left of the Windows drive, and then there are no complications at upgrade time.
Microsoft could provide such a tool if they wanted to, of course. I guess they don’t because they don’t have to… the aftermarket has it covered, and it would cost money for MS to develop their own program that would not really do anything more than what the aftermarket ones do.
There are a lot of different categories of important utility programs that are not provided by MS. It never really bothered me in my Windows days as long as I could get the job done without having to pay extra for something that would otherwise be thought to be something that should be part of the OS.
Now that I use Linux with a KDE desktop environment, there’s KDE Partition Manager, and there’s also Gnome Partition Editor (GPartEd). Either will work on any Linux setup, but KDE Partition Manager will visually integrate with KDE setups seamlessly, while GPartEd will integrate well with any GTK-based desktop (GNOME, Cinnamon, Xfce, MATE, and more). One or the other of these is usually preinstalled on any live session ISO, and you can even use them to create, move, and resize Microsoft NTFS partitions from that live session.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/16GB & GTX1660ti, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
Microsoft could provide such a tool if they wanted to,
Don’t agree.
All Microsoft’s Windows build-in tools are a joke.
There are better 3rd party partition tools, backup tools, file copy tools, uninstall tools, Windows update tools, file explorer tools, disk cleanup tools, A/V tools…then Microsoft is able to develop. Were they able they would have.
Used MiniTool Partition Wizard the one time I needed to mess around with the partitions on my disk and it worked perfectly for me. Also used it for migrating the OS from a mechanical disk to an SSD and that went without an issue as well.
I have mixed feelings about MS providing their own drive partition tool. It would certainly be handy to have such a tool added as an integral feature of Windows. However, third party tools like MiniTool seem to work just fine and I would not be too surprised if what MS could come up with turns out to be limited in the type of actions it can perform or, even worse, buggy (considering the quality of updates, I have some reservations about new features as well…).
I agree that Windows should have a full featured disk partitioning tool built in. I have used GpartEd for at least 15 years. Prior to that I used Partition Magic. I am sure that other third party tools work as well.
I have used these tools to remove OEM partitions from drives when I upgraded to a larger capacity drive.
At 37 years of age MS should just provide a modern partitioning tool natively.
Nothing unusual about that! The pattern I see is: When a new Windows version appears, you start with 1/2 or less of previous version benefits and features and then have to live with slowly improving beta software for about 5 years. Next you have a fairly well working system for about 2 years until the next new Windows version installs and then the cycle repeats. There seems to be no end to this pattern. Why expect more?
If Microsoft were to develop a partition tool:
If all third party mentioned partitioning utilities ‘work well’, so be it, use them. Haven’t MSFT got enough on their plate trying to fix what is not broken, or is, for that matter.?
Although I would suspect that MSFT are more than likely to provide something (paid) in the MSFT Store as an option first whilst integrating a neutered version into Windows 12?
As per NOW, I much prefer 3rd party utilities and MSFT ain’t gonna change that. Simply don’t need nor want any more infrequently used BLOAT in the OS by default when attaching a usb flash or cd-rom can equip infrequent needs for our or other’s devices.
Tonight I will ask the pondering question of why…. why can’t Microsoft/Windows provide a native tool that properly partitions drives?
Windows partition/folder/file protection gets in the way, and Windows own backup scheme are the short answer. Diskpart can be used to partition a drive from the Windows Recovery Environment, but the drive must first be empty/cleaned. Partitions can be sized to suit, but then the contents must be restored to the new sizes. Third party drive imaging can do that, but Windows backup does not have the granularity, and MS isn’t actively improving that.
A Microsoft Reserved partition can’t be touched, but it can be removed using diskpart from within the Windows RE. OEM recovery partitions use the same protections, and so they also get in the way.
As to “why”, one must be well versed in the issues and hazards of using the diskpart command line and familiar with the file system overhead in order to get the partition sizes to suit. Since Microsoft and OEMs have moved away from installation discs, some useful tools must be created on disc/USB stick using Windows utilities. How many of the billion+ users have the knowledge, experience and courage to do all that?
Microsoft has no incentive to create tools that will only be used by a very tiny, tiny portion of their installed user base.
Eh, it’s par for the course.
These days, I’d just like them to focus on testing patches/updates before release so that basic services, like ODBC, are not magically broken.
Win7 still feels like the pinnacle from my perspective :-/
There is DISKPART…
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/diskpart
It just doesn’t have a nice GUI interface.
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