Safely Remove Hardware

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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It sits there as long as external USB devices are connected - but - my experience is that it really serves no purpose because they all hot plug and unplug just fine without asking <Microsoft's permission.

The fact that it sits there and adds to the tray population as well as adding a few seconds to the boot/load process, is annoying

Anyone know of a registry hack that will get rid of it?
 

Lifted

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2004
5,748
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Go to the taskbar properties, "hide inactive icons" to choose what you want showing.

Warning: I have found that with USB flash drives, if I do not safely remove the device, files which I thought were copied onto the device are not there. When you safely remove a device, it flushes any files which may be waiting to be written to it and also shuts off the power to the drive. I do this for all data devices now. That aside, I wouldn't worry about a USB joystick, pocket rocket, etc.
 

Blazer

Golden Member
Nov 5, 1999
1,051
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not using the safe to remove icon leads to sys errows,increases boot and shotdown time
 

bsobel

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Dec 9, 2001
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Originally posted by: corkyg
It sits there as long as external USB devices are connected - but - my experience is that it really serves no purpose because they all hot plug and unplug just fine without asking <Microsoft's permission. The fact that it sits there and adds to the tray population as well as adding a few seconds to the boot/load process, is annoying Anyone know of a registry hack that will get rid of it?

If the device is being shown there it's because caching is enabled (which can lead to data loss if the cache isn't flushed before you disconnect the device). For drives, change the drive policy in device manager, the device should go away in the list.

As for adding seconds to load time, it will take some time, but I honestly doubt it reaches the point where you could actually tell.

As someone else said, you can hide it if you like (but thats different from disabling it)

Bill
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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Thank you, Bill. That is what I needed to know. :)
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
27,370
239
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Originally posted by: bsobel

For drives, change the drive policy in device manager, the device should go away in the list.

I checked the drive policy for every peripheral device listed - and ALL were optimized for quick release with the caching disabled. That is why, in my system, that icon serves no purpose and I never use it.

The devices are still listed regardless.

 

tribbles

Member
Jan 25, 2005
61
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That icon is a little annoying. Using an nForce motherboard with a SATA drive causes that icon to display, since technically SATA are hot-swappable. I'd like to get rid of the icon, too, but for now I've had to resort to simply hiding it.
 

MEDeval

Junior Member
Jun 5, 2001
12
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Originally posted by: bpm3k
Originally posted by: tribbles
That icon is a little annoying. Using an nForce motherboard with a SATA drive causes that icon to display, since technically SATA are hot-swappable. I'd like to get rid of the icon, too, but for now I've had to resort to simply hiding it.

Me too.

Me 3
 

Stas

Senior member
Dec 31, 2004
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quote: Originally posted by: bpm3k quote: Originally posted by: tribbles That icon is a little annoying. Using an nForce motherboard with a SATA drive causes that icon to display, since technically SATA are hot-swappable. I'd like to get rid of the icon, too, but for now I've had to resort to simply hiding it.

Me too.

Me 3

Me 4 :(