The following post was jointly written by both Sharron Field & Misca Nicoleta in joint-collaboration during 2009.

Sharron Field is the usual author and owner of this blog. Misca Nicoleta is a mother of 2 who works from home on her computer in Romania

Windows 7 comes with a solid disk management tool that should suffice for most of your basic needs. You can create/attach/detach VHDs (Virtual Hard Discs) from the Windows Disk Management tool without using any third party applications.

Creating or deleting a partition is simple. To create a new partition you need have unallocated space to create the new partition in. When deleting a partition, you need make sure that the partition has no irreplaceable and/or personal files in it before deleting it. If it does, then it’s your loss; but you probably won’t be happy about it.

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How to create a partition in Windows 7:

1. Type diskmgmt.msc in Start menu search field and hit enter to open the Disk Management window. As an alternative, you can right-click on the desktop computer icon, select Manage, and then select Disk Management (under Storage).

2. Right-click on the unallocated space and select New simple volume option to see the New Simple Volume Wizard. Click Next to proceed.

3. Enter the amount of disk space that you want to create, and click Next.

4. In the next step, assign a drive letter. Click Next again.

5. Enter a name for the new volume and click Next.

6.Select the formatting type you wish to use and complete the format of the partition.

7. Click Finish button to complete the procedure. Your new partition is ready to use.

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How to delete a partition in Windows 7:

1. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Start menu search field and hit enter to open the Disk Management window.

2. Right-click on the partition that you want to delete, and select Delete volume.

3. You will see the warning message. Click the Yes button to continue to delete the partition.

The partition will be deleted immediately with the minimum of hassle.

Microsoft have put a lot of thought into this version of Windows, and tasks that were once complicated and cumbersome; where you needed to be gifted with a technical mind and a large memory simply to remember and/or discover where the right part of the GUI was so that you could access the task, have now been made much more accessible and user-friendly to complete. This is just one example of such an instance. I think the dysfunctionality of Vista combined with the increasingly ever-heavier and hard-to navigate Windows GUI over the years have forced Microsoft to rethink things in what essentially amounts to a case of sink or swim.

It demonstrates that they can produce an excellent product when they try.

So what are your thoughts on the new disk-management built into Windows 7? Do you think it’s a good idea? Maybe you think it sucks? Is this the beginning of the end for third-party applications such as Paragon Partition Manager? tell us your thoughts on this; we’d all be interested to hear them.

One last thing: It has been pointed out to me that all the illustrations in this article bear the copyright watermark of intowindows.com . This is evident, but please remember that all that gubbins is actually previously copyrighted by microsoft.com long before intowindows.com got a hold of it. All I’m doing is giving them a taste of their own medicine; but I can’t break a copyright that isn’t theirs to claim in the first place, can I now?

If Microsoft have any objections to my using these illustrations I’ll gladly remove them. Until such time as I receive such notification from Microsoft, they’re staying put.

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