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On Windows 7, the partition that had Windows 7 was C:. I had 2 other partitions D: and E:. I installed Windows 8 on E. When I boot into Win8, E is shown as C. And the one which had Windows 7 installed is shown as E. But there is no change when in the drive letters when I boot into Win7.

WIN7 C: (Contains Win7) D: E: (Contains Win8)

WIN8 C: (Contains Win8) D: E: (Contains Win7)

Why this change? And won't it create problems?

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    The letters don't really mean anything, they're just sort of an alias for the location.
    – SaintWacko
    Sep 4, 2012 at 16:17

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This won't create any problems except some confusion for someone. This changes is because, Windows assign drive letter C: on the drive, where it itself is installed. So, For Windows 7, C: is the partition it installed into, the same case for Windows 8.

Note that: Drive letters don't depend on partition numbers, though it may be seems so, because it is a tradition to install Windows on the first partition. I have Windows 7 installed 7th partition, and in Windows it is shown as C:.

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  • Of course one can also change the drive letter if you want. The default behavior is as you describe. So it is only logical a fresh installation of Windows 8 would have the default behavior.
    – Ramhound
    Sep 4, 2012 at 13:18
  • This "will" create problems if you have hundreds of scripts and apps to migrate that use hard coded paths!
    – user294827
    Jan 30, 2014 at 23:40

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