Windows just announced a new Dev Drive feature, optimised for high I/O scenarios such as build and test. It also works as a very clear signal that the user is a developer and is doing developer-like tasks.

We should add a function to allow querying whether a specific path is on a Dev Drive. The API is relatively low level, and cannot currently be used from Python, but would allow Python apps to detect when the user is operating on a Dev Drive (e.g. installing or compiling something on one), or choose or offer a more performant temporary or cache location than the user directory.

(For a variety of mostly compatibility reasons, there's no way for Windows to redirect %TEMP% onto a Dev Drive, but apps that are aware of it can do it for themselves.)

Linked PRs

• gh-104803: Implement ntpath.isdevdrive for checking whether a path is on a Windows Dev Drive #104805
• [3.12] gh-104803: Implement ntpath.isdevdrive for checking whether a path is on a Windows Dev Drive (GH-104805) #105054