Windows 7: how does W7 see Disk Volumes ?

I got to thinking about the differences between Windows 7 and Mac OS X, and one thing i'd like to know is how Windows 7 sees disk volumes.

On the mac OS, the drives have mount points, so the volume just shows up on the desktop, or in the case of an optical or removable drive, appears when there is a cd or when the drive is plugged in.

Windows I know uses a letter addressing system, but things like card readers and the like are always visible even if there is no media present.

Why does MS keep to this protocol? is it restricted by architecture, or is there an advantage that i'm just not getting?

Also I understand that Vista and 7 both have a different boot architecture in place than XP. I might be misinformed, but how I understand it is that XP has MBR setup and Vista and 7 have GUID setups for booting. Is this the case, or have I totally got the wrong end of the stick?

What's the advantage of the new Vista/ 7 boot methodology?

Thanks in advance as i'm just curious to know these differences.

First, NT supports mount points. In fact, a few of the partitions on my system are accessible only via mount point and not by drive letter.

As for why MSFT keeps using drive letters, it's all about backward compatibility. Apple is not afraid to arrogantly say "f*ck you" to all of its existing users (e.g., the new Mac Pro does not support Firewire 400, leaving all existing iSight users screwed... Apple pulls this kind of stunt all the time with hardware and software). It helps make Apple "cool", but it makes Apple a very poor platform. Microsoft realizes that in order for a platform to be successful, it has to be, first and foremost, stable, so people who invest in the platform can feel safe knowing that years down the line, what they bought for (or developed for) the platform still viable. That's why something so fundamental as this will never change because every MSFT OS has used it, that's why Microsoft bends over backwards to ensure as much compatibility as possible, and that's why Windows dominates.

Thanks Dataman,

So would it be possible for me to change my system to use mount points rather than drive letters? I just prefer it as a much more aesthetic and elegant solution.

I know what you are saying about Apple, I was one of the adopters when OSX came around and yes it as a big fcuk to legacy.

Interesting how my views have changed since Windows 7 beta though and now the only part of Mac OSX I crave is the GUI as I still feel that it's more sublime than Windows 7's.

Windows 7 recognize partitions from MBR disk and automatically mount them -it is visible in device manager

thanks flavius, what I was getting at was that i'd like to see the volumes or media only when mounted rather than having to see every port of my card reader and cd drives all the time.