RE: Shorter way to unplug USB devices?

[mary]

I have an external hard drive that requires me to actually use the the eject
hardware feature in the system tray. The problem is...the icon's not there
to use it!! How do I get the icon there to safely remove the hardware? I
have windows xp.

"Thomas Jerkins" wrote:

> The normal way to unplug USB devices from computers is:
> - to right click on the USB icon in the Systray
> "Unplug or eject Hardware"
> - to select the hardware device
> - to click on the button "Stop"
> - to confirm the unplugging
> - to confirm the message window "The device can now be safely removed from the system"
>
> Hmm, rather unconvenient all these steps.
> Isn't there a shorter way to unplug USB devices?
>
> I want a dropdown unplug menu, a click that's it!
>
> Maybe there is a 3rd party utility for this purpose?
>
> Tom
>
>

[Zilbandy]

(Thomas Jerkins) wrote:

>The normal way to unplug USB devices from computers is:
>- to right click on the USB icon in the Systray
> "Unplug or eject Hardware"
>- to select the hardware device
>- to click on the button "Stop"
>- to confirm the unplugging
>- to confirm the message window "The device can now be safely removed from the system"
>
>Hmm, rather unconvenient all these steps.
>Isn't there a shorter way to unplug USB devices?
>
>I want a dropdown unplug menu, a click that's it!
>
>Maybe there is a 3rd party utility for this purpose?

I have a usb2 external hard drive and when I'm done, I just unplug it.
The drive does not use 'write behind caching' so there is no chance of
data loss. The main reason for doing the procedure you mention is to
insure that data won't be lost due to unpluging a device before
windows finishes with its tasks and settings. The usb plugs can be
plugged in and unplugged without damage to the device or computer. If
some of the more knowledgeable gurus have any reason for not simply
unplugging it, please let me know. I MIGHT be mistaken here. :x

[3c273]

Piggybacking on someone else's reply (didn't see original post),

> > Hmm, rather unconvenient all these steps.
> > Isn't there a shorter way to unplug USB devices?

Left click on tray icon and select device to unplug. (Two clicks.)
Louis

[Gary Chanson]

"mary" > wrote in message
...
> I have an external hard drive that requires me to actually use the the
eject
> hardware feature in the system tray. The problem is...the icon's not
there
> to use it!! How do I get the icon there to safely remove the hardware? I
> have windows xp.

Does it show up in the list you get when you run "Add/Remove Hardware"
from the control panel and select "Uninstall/Unplug a device" followed by
"Unplug/Eject a device"?

You should be able to use Microsoft's deveject program (which I think is
part of the Resource Kit).

--
- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools