How to get rid of Safely Remove Hardware?

My new dell XP computer ALWAYS has this "Safely Remove
Hardware" thing running in the system tray, because the CD-
rom is a removable device. I never use this function, even
when I take the drive out because really it's a useless
function.

Is there any way to get rid of this ? Permanently ?

I am aware that it can be "hidden" (but then you have the
arrows to indicate more things are running, so it's not
really hidden) and I even found a little program that when
run will make it go away, but after a reboot it is back,
the program only works for that single session.

Anybody know how to access the controls for this thing and
get rid of it??

I just find it really annoying and would love to blast it
away.