I recently encountered a confusing situation while creating a PDQ Inventory scanner to identify machines with a boot partition that might be too small or full for an OS upgrade. I expected the PowerShell command `get-partition | ? isBoot` to return the 100MB partition, but instead it gave me the C partition. After some digging, I learned that Microsoft has its own definitions for boot and system partitions, which can be quite different from general expectations. Apparently, Microsoft defines the boot partition as one that isn't necessarily the first one used for booting, which seems a bit bizarre. I found a Wikipedia article that highlights how confusing these definitions can be, and it made me chuckle. To clarify, I discovered that I should instead use `get-partition | ? isSystem` to find what I needed.
3 Answers
Simplifying it a bit: The C: partition has the main OS files that get booted after the initial loading from the smaller ESP partition. If you run the `BCDEDIT /Enum` command, it shows how the boot loader references the C: drive for all the vital boot files after the system gets going. That's why it’s confusing with the two different terms!
You're not alone in this confusion! It's one of those things that trips a lot of folks up. Microsoft essentially made a change starting with Windows 7, where the boot and system partitions became separate. The C: drive usually holds the OS, while the hidden system partition (like the 100MB one) contains boot files. Microsoft did this mainly for security reasons, especially with features like BitLocker requiring an unencrypted system partition to boot from. It's a bit of a legacy thing too, where older code might still expect a different setup, which adds to the confusion.
And as you mentioned, the separation means that they can make improvements to security while keeping older systems compatible. It makes things messy for us, but they have their reasons!
Honestly, this has always baffled me too. The terminology can feel really outdated, and I think a lot of it stems from backward compatibility with older Windows versions. Before NT6, there wasn’t such a clear distinction, which could be why people still get it mixed up. It’s frustrating trying to keep up with all these changes, especially when they just seem to complicate things!
Totally agree! It's like Microsoft went out of their way to create more work for us admins, but here we are, just trying to keep everything running smoothly.
Exactly! It's all about ensuring that the boot process can access necessary files without digging through the encrypted sections. Plus, having a dedicated boot partition helps with cleaner setups.