label is a shell command for setting the label of a volume (a.k.a. logical drive).

The command is supported for most variants of the FAT file system and for NTFS. It is available in various operating systems such as DOS, OS/2, Windows, ReactOS, DR DOS 6.0, and FreeDOS. It is available in MS-DOS versions 3.1 and later and IBM PC DOS releases 3 and later.

In modern versions of Windows, changing the label requires elevated permissions.

The current label is reported by both the dir and vol commands.

In Unix-like systems, various commands set a storage label. For instance, the command e2label is for an ext2 partition.

5 1⁄4-inch floppy disk with a hand-written label.

The command was originally designed to label floppy disks as a reminder of which one is in the disk drive. But it can be used for other types of storage media.

Use

With no options, the command accepts a single argument may start with a drive letter (ending with a colon) and may end with label text. Without a drive letter, the command operates on the volume associated with the working directory. Without label text, the command clears the label.

For example, the command line label D:Backup sets the label of D: to "Backup".

With the /MP option, the command accepts up to two arguments: volume and label. In this case, the volume argument is treated as a mount point or a volume name. If volume name is specified, the /MP option is unnecessary.

See also

Further reading

  • Cooper, Jim (2001). Special Edition Using MS-DOS 6.22, Third Edition. Que Publishing. ISBN 978-0789725738.
  • Tim O'Reilly; Troy Mott; Walter Glenn (1999). . O'Reilly. ISBN 978-1565924864.
  • John Paul Mueller (2007). Windows Administration at the Command Line for Windows Vista, Windows 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470165799.

External links