CNET Editors' review
Windows Explorer lets you open a USB drive or DVD when you insert them, but to return to them later, you've got to reopen Explorer and click your way to the disk or device. Thanks to Desk Drive from Blue Onion, though, you can instantly open your flash drive, CD-ROM, DVD, or other external storage devices and media. It's a free tool that sits in your System Tray until you insert an external device. Desk Drive then places a quick-access icon on the desktop that links to the drive and hangs around until you eject it. Desk Drive does more than open thumbdrives and DVDs; you can enable it for fixed and removable drives, networked drives, and even RAM-based devices. You can also configure it to open Explorer automatically, too.
We installed Desk Drive and inserted a USB drive, and the program instantly created a desktop icon labeled with the drive's name and letter and simultaneously initiated the Windows file-opening dialog. We closed this and clicked the desktop icon. The drive opened directly in its file directory. Right-clicking the icon called up the removable drive's tabbed properties sheet with all settings and controls directed to the drive, not the shortcut. We ejected the drive, and the icon went transparent before vanishing while the Windows Safe to Remove Hardware message appeared above the System Tray. We even tried Desk Drive with a password-protected USB drive, and it opened fine; we just had to go through the password dialog to access the protected files. Right-clicking the Desk Drive icon in the System Tray called up the program's Settings dialog, a series of check boxes for selecting device types and functional choices such as running at start-up and hiding the tray icon. There's an entry field for excluding drives and a publisher's Web link, but that's about it.
Desk Drive is rated for XP and Vista, but we tested the 64-bit application in Windows 7 with no troubles whatsoever. It's a simple tool with a simple job, but it can reduce keystrokes, mouse clicks, and time spent navigating to files and folders.
Publisher's Description
From Blue Onion Software:
Desk Drive solves a really annoying problem. You pop a USB thumb drive or DVD into your computer and then you have to open Window's Explorer and find the mapped drive or folder. Desk Drive adds a desktop icon pointing to the drive automatically. Remove the media and the shortcut goes away. Brilliantly simple and effective.
Desk Drive sits quietly in the system tray. Configuration (image at right) is just a click away and allows you to specify which types of media to monitor. So simple, it just works.
More Popular Desktop Customization downloads
- Fences
19,652 downloads
- ObjectDock
15,503 downloads
- Winstep Nexus Dock
10,444 downloads
- WindowBlinds
7,046 downloads
- Winstep Xtreme
3,747 downloads
-
All versions:
4.2 starsout of 6 votes
-
Current version:
0 stars Be the first to review this product -
My rating:
Write review
Results 1-6 of 6
-
"Makes accessing and ejecting the drive a piece of cake."
Version: Desk Drive 1.8.2
Pros
Works good with Vista and with all three of the ones I have.
Cons
Wish each drive would have its' own icon.
Summary
It's great to use; saves time and accessibility.
-
"this product works rlly good"
Version: Desk Drive 1.8.2
Pros
it runs fast
Cons
may give u a virus
Summary
good product please download
-
"Pop in a disk or connect a drive, POOF on your desktop."
Version: Desk Drive 1.8.2
Pros
Finally, the usefulness of having any drive in or connected to your PC show up on the desktop, ready for use. They will stay there waiting to use and can then be ejected/unmounted right from the icon. R-click>eject.
Cons
Unable to place a custom Icon (ico) on them.
Summary
Puts drives on the desktop where I can use them. No more hunting down thru the heirarchy to find thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, and other drives, even externals. The internal Drives are right there for me to use easily also. FINALLY, More Mac-Like and as such, More Useful. Speeds up my use of connected drives and also using C:, D: drives
-
"Great tool, but only if you use your Desktop"
Version: Desk Drive 1.8.2
Pros
Lets you turn off Windows "AutoPlay" and instead simply shows a desktop icon for each new "disk" (USB drive, SD card, CD, DVD, internal drive, etc). Makes it very easy to access disk contents, and to also eject or safely remove them.
Cons
Sometimes unstable (DotNet issues, I think), but restarting the app fixes the problems, if required. Doesn't always provide the "Eject" or "Safely Remove" options; seems to depend on the age of your OS.
Summary
Why does "AutoPlay" feel it must catalogue the 100K+ files on my external drive just to decide whether or not to show me a window? Forget that crap. Turn off AutoPlay, and use Desk Drive instead. This wonderful little app is very simple. Every time you insert a new disk of some kind, it will create a temporary desktop icon for that disk. Double-clicking on the icon lets you browse the contents, or use the context menu to explore other options, including "Eject" and "Safely Remove"!
I've installed this wonderful little app the computers of many friends and colleagues, on systems ranging from WinXP to Win7, and they've all really appreciated how much easier it is to access the content on their external disks.
Provides options for showing or hiding desktop icons for internal drives as well.
There are some minor compatibility issues, and the app will sometimes crash if a disk is removed unsafely, but these are minor problems that do not prevent this from being a very useful application.
I could also wish that it worked a little better with Fences. Unfortunately, the temporary desktop icons will not appear in an existing fence, no matter what you do. Easy enough to work around, by just leaving some unfenced Desktop space in the right place for the icons to appear, but a little annoying. This is a minor quibble, however, and doesn't stop Desk Drive from being a wonderfully useful tool.
Highly recommended! -
"It Good but not what I am looking for"
Version: Desk Drive 1.8
Pros
Saves time
Cons
Not What I am looking for
-
"Terrific, indispensable, should have been built in!"
Version: Desk Drive 1.7.2
Pros
Does exactly what it says, showing an icon for every drive or removable disk you attach to your system, whether built in, using a card reader, or via USB, etc.
Cons
One minor bug: when you rename a disk via the icon, only the desktop icon is renamed, not the original disk as intended. You need to rename the disk via your "My Computer" window. Doing this will create a new icon, leaving the old one stranded.
Summary
Extremely useful, one of the first things I install whenever I start using a new computer. SO MUCH BETTER than that stupid "auto-mount" feature which will spend a full minute trying to decide whether or not to open a folder for you to see your files.
Works fairly well with Fences, another indispensable tool. However, it always tries to drop new icons outside of a fence, rather than inside the one I want it to use.
Aside from these minor issues, a great tool, highly recommended.
Add Your Review
Submit your reply
E-mail this review
Report offensive content
See more CNET content tagged:
Previous Versions:
