Hiding the Windows Partition Symbol on the OSX Desktop?

[robbiekins]

Hey guys!

I've just installed XP Pro SP2 on my MacBook via BootCamp - created a 32 GB partition, everything went flawlessly.

One question however. It's sort of aesthetically displeasing to see the windows partition underneath the OSX partition whenever I boot into OSX. Looks like this:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/7526/picture1ug5.png

Any way to just hide the WINDOWS icon from appearing on the desktop?

Sort of a silly question, but I enjoy OSX for the pretty anyway

[gehrbox]

Originally Posted by robbiekins

Hey guys!

I've just installed XP Pro SP2 on my MacBook via BootCamp - created a 32 GB partition, everything went flawlessly.

One question however. It's sort of aesthetically displeasing to see the windows partition underneath the OSX partition whenever I boot into OSX. Looks like this:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/7526/picture1ug5.png

Any way to just hide the WINDOWS icon from appearing on the desktop?

Sort of a silly question, but I enjoy OSX for the pretty anyway

Boot into Windows and rename or you can follow some of the suggestions on the following thread:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=328947

[i.shaun]

0r go into Finder preferences, and under "show these items on desktop" un-check the "hard disks" option.

Both the Macintosh & Windows HDDs should be gone.


I did that to clear desktop space. Why even have it there? It's right there in finder when you need it. The only thinks I have on desktop are:

-Dump (mainly for mass downloaded/copied files. Example: unloading digital camera)
-INFO.txt (info, for example: info about downloaded files incase i forget what mmpd.dmg means)
-Various downloaded files that come and go (images, programs, etc..)


I download to desktop or dump folder, and sort files out later -- that way I keep organized. No more downloading to some folder, and forgetting about it, then having to sort 100+ files at once...

[robbiekins]

That might have to work shaun, thanks. No way to just hide one of the hard disks?

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by robbiekins

That might have to work shaun, thanks. No way to just hide one of the hard disks?

Please read the thread that gehrbox linked. If you rename any drive to have a leading "." in the name, it won't show up on the desktop in OS X. Easiest solution. Just rename your Windows drive .windows or .vista or something like that.

[robbiekins]

I tried that, and OSX gives me a message saying:

"You cannot use a name that begins with a dot ".", because these names are reserved for the system. Please choose another name."

And it obviously doesn't let me do what I want.

[Neil321]

Originally Posted by robbiekins

I tried that, and OSX gives me a message saying:

"You cannot use a name that begins with a dot ".", because these names are reserved for the system. Please choose another name."

And it obviously doesn't let me do what I want.

you tried renaming it in windows ??

[robbiekins]

No sir. I'll try that now.

[richthomas]

theres a few ways to do this

1) add a period to the start of the partition name in Windows which gehrbox suggested.

2) creating an apple script or bash script that unmounts the Windows partition and add it as a login item.

3) use MacPilot to make the partition hidden

if your partition is formatted as FAT32 number 3 will work fine, but if formatted as NTFS you will need to enable write access to NTFS which can be done with MacFuse/NTFS3g or NTFS for Mac OS X.

i personally just hide hard drives from my desktop and drag it off Finder's sidebar like i.shaun suggested.

[Neil321]

Originally Posted by robbiekins

No sir. I'll try that now.

i wasn't trying to be funny you know