Hi:

I have finally been conditioned to click on the "safely remove hardware"
button before removing my thumb drive.

Problem is that most/all of the time I get a message that some program is
using the drive.

My problem is that even when I stop all user programs I still get the same
message.

When I'm in a hurry I just take the thumb drive out (with no obvious
problems) and when I'm not, I restart and remove it toward the end of the
"shutting down" part of the cycle.

Our system has been in service for "awhile" and it has all kinds of updates
automatically performed and many, many user programs installed. The kids
have installed lots of stuff I have no real information on.

Thanks in advance.