Microsoft has in mind the removal of the Windows Control Panel in favor of the Configuration tool and is in the task of replacing the old system applications with new Modern UI equivalents.
Now the job has reached the disk management application. An important component dedicated to the management of storage units internally installed or externally connected to a personal computer and offers information on drives and volumes, along with partition management, creation, and management.
Windows Disk Manager allows other more advanced uses such as converting disks to dynamic; MBR or GPT partition type management; creating VHD virtual disks or marking partitions as active. It also serves to “initialize” new disks, something we will have to do when we add a new unrecognized drive in the file explorer.
Modern UI Disk Manager
Since Windows 10 Build 20175, one of the latest system test versions, Microsoft has included this application in System Settings. The function is hidden, although it can be accessed from Settings> Storage and from the “Manage disks and volumes” link.
The new disk manager home page displays a list of the disks and their volumes. When the user selects a specific volume, they will see two options: Explore and Properties. The ‘Explore’ button simply opens the disk partition in File Explorer, while the second option allows you to actually manage the selected volume. This is where the drive letter can be changed:
The page also displays a graphical representation of the volume and available storage space. From there you can “Resize” each of them, reducing the volume of some when needed. For example, when you want to install an alternative operating system next to the main one.
The tool is not yet complete and features such as deleting and formatting disk partitions are missing, surely the most useful of any disk manager. But we confirm, the UWP version for Modern UI interface of this Disk management it is up and running and we assume it will be included fully and generally in future major updates to Windows 10. Meanwhile, nothing better than using the classic disk manager.
As for the Control Panel, you already know the idea of Microsoft: concealment or elimination. Of course, the Configuration is still missing many management elements and there are duplications throughout the system. Microsoft should make a final decision on the “Configuration” capabilities and complete it accordingly for the most important internal tool on Windows systems. And decide the final destination of the Windows Control Panel. But do it in one go to improve user experience.
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