why is the drive letter for the mounted iso file changing

cns00 said:

my laptop has two hard disks which are C: and D:. i have .iso files and i am mounting them by using windows explorer. normally when i mount an .iso file then it is getting mounted on E:

i recently started using windows 10 build 21h2 on my laptop. i noticed something weird and .iso files are being mounted sometimes on E: and sometimes on F:

for example:
1) i mount an .iso file and it's mounted on E:
2) i unmount the .iso file
3) i mount the same .iso file and it's mounted on F: and it skipped E: which is unused
4) i unmount the .iso file
5) i mount the same .iso file and it's mounted on E:

why is it randomly switching between E: and F:? is this a new windows feature?

how do i disable that so .iso files are always mounted on the same drive letter?

Windows has always done this. It just means Windows is not properly tidying up its drive letter assignments.

Try assigning a letter much higher e.g. M and see if it does same.

cns00 said:

i mounted the .iso files after each other. that's why the issue happened. how much time do i have to wait after i unmount an .iso file so that windows cleans the drive letters?

No idea. Why does it matter anyway?

How Much Time? > After a Reboot - Maybe.....