AutoHotkey Community

[f.ivengo]

USB Safely Remove is a cute safely remove hardware replacement. Main features:
* Hiding any device from handy stop menu
* Real device names + renaming
* Keyboard shortcuts (!!!) for easy device stopping
* Programs autorun on device plugging/unplugging
* Shows processes preveting device from being stopped
* Command line



It helps me clearly identify all usb connected drives, so I as a user know all external peripherials connected to the PC, several devices such as external hard drives are clearly and quickly identified and shown in the program box, also a valuable function built into the program is option of which devices are allowed to be disconnected and which are forbidden, this is an important feature as my external hard drives are continually transferring data from the PC, there have been instances in the past where Windows safely remove program would be UNABLE to disconnect these devices at any point and so lose system memory information in flow and to a greater extent crash the PC.Another feature I am glad of is the ability to select images to be associated with a particular connected equipment, this makes identification a lot more easier when you have several memory, flash, game hardware connected at once (the custom naming also helps).

Link to the site: http://safelyremove.com/
Link to exe: http://safelyremove.com/usbsafelyremovesetup.exe

Not free, but there is a way to get it for free, look here: http://safelyremove.com/writeanarticle.htm.

Also if you purchase it today(if you so fast:) ) you will be entered into a draw to win Apple iPod nano (http://safelyremove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33)

[JDN]

I have examined USB Safely Remove and I like it and would recommend it to anyone who is interested.

My preferred feature? It's the intelligent way the author deals with the Freeware/Payware/Shareware issues. I have to say this is the best solution I have ever seen and I like it very much!

Here is a link to the site: http://safelyremove.com/

And, here is a link to the exe: http://safelyremove.com/usbsafelyremovesetup.exe

[majkinetor]

There is no need to safely remove USB drives generaly. I always just unplug them. You just need to see if its drive light is flashing and wait for the drive to finish operation. Its the same for any hardware
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[SKAN]

I'm not sure, but XP SP2 runs a scandisk on my flash drive the next time after unplugging, er.. "unsafely".

[JDN]

I'm posting my experiences for those of you who would like to know what to expect if you comply with their request and send them your "full name" as well as writing an "article" about their product. They request you do this in order to get a free license for their product. You can see the article I wrote earlier in this thread.

In order to comply, I sent them a link to this thread as well as my full name. They sent me an email containing two pieces of info. The first was called the "registration name" and was the exact string that I sent them containing my full name. The second was called the "registration code" and it was a string of 30 alphanumeric characters. Unfortunately, they never specified whether the license was of the "Lifetime Duration" or the "One Year" duration.

The code is somehow tied to the name. In other words, in order to successfully register the free version of the product, you must specify the exact same "full name" they sent you together with the exact same "registration code" they sent you.

One interesting thing - I expected that every time I started their product, it would display my "full name" in a prominent way. Presumably this would discourage people from "sharing" registered copies of their product which would seem to be only fair. I was surprised that this didn't happen. Perhaps it may begin to do that after the 30 days have expired, which could be an unpleasant surprise for people who have used their legal full name and gotten their copy registered and then sent multiple copies to a large number of friends. It could happen that their full legal name would then appear on multiple PCs whenever people either use or start this product. The warning seems pretty clear. If any of your friends want a copy of this product, you should tell them to register their own copy and do not send them a copy of your registered version. Otherwise, things might become a little embarassing for you.

Unless, of course, you were suspicious enough to have sent them a "pen name" when you first provided your full name.

You have to admit though - all in all - it's a pretty clever way to distribute a product and get some free promotion or advertising at the same time. I tip my hat to the developer. I think it's a very clever approach for this type of product - assuming of course the developer is on the level and that they want to provide a useful product and they're not just "mining" for lists of peoples' legal names together with their valid email addresses.

I am intrigued by what majkinetor posted. I bought a USB drive about a year ago and the first few times I used it, it would notify me when it was safe to remove the USB drive. However, after those first few times, it never worked correctly again. When I tried to disconnect it, it always gave me a message that the drive was in use and could not be disconnected at that time. So, just as majkinetor said, I looked at the red light and saw when it wasn't reading or writing anything and then I just unplugged it without ever any problems. Since then, I must have used it over a hundred times by now with never any problems. So, maybe the software that tells you it's safe to remove the USB drive really is unnecessary. Isn't that good for a laugh?

[majkinetor]

I tell you, this software is useless as much as similar OS tray option.

I can't find it now, but there is an option in MyComputer Properties for USB hardware which say something like:

- alow unsafe usb removal

which is default OS option. When you uncheck it, the system will IIRC not flash the drive so often so some data may be lost.

When you think about it, its completely logical - the USB is desinged to be pluged/unplaged without any special procedure, the only thing that can be problematic is while it works as you can bump in the middle of the writting which may produce all kind of side effects, but will usualy just behave like you safely unpluged it. So, if the drive doesn't work, its perfectly safe to remove it.

Some drives may work all the time, like USB cable modem, but again, such things can be usualy turned off using the button, and internals are not so sensitive like it is the case with USB drives.
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[JDN]

Majkinetor,

After thinking it over, I have to agree with you. It was an interesting experience, however. Thankfully, the email address I sent them was highly disposable. Just to be careful though, I won't use it again for anything else in the future.

[majkinetor]

hehe

FYI, there is one little thingie you might want to use, called mailinator.

You thought out any mail you like and just add @Mailinator.com, for instance MySpammingEmail@Mailinator.com. Then you put that mail wherever you want and if somebody send you something, Mailinator will receive and if user doesn't exist it will create the one for you that will last 7 days or so. So you can come, enter the e-mail account you want to check peak up any info you want and forget about it.

It worked for me several times but later it stoped.

There is no password so anybody can enter any e-mail, but this is not for some sensitve data sharing.
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[fsnow55]

Not sure what this sw does but I'd resolved issues with removing USB drives . from instructions in the web. These are the 2 common reasons:

1. MS explorer window open with the USB's file/dir (just kill the window).
Also check/kill other programs that are accessing the files/dirs e.g. media player etc.

2. Recycle bin (of C: drive) is mounting other drives e.g. usb's.
RMB > Properties of Recycle Bin: "Do not move files to the Recycle Bin" for the other drives.

Hope this helps.

[bmcclure]

I almost never use the Safely Remove Hardware window but since it's always in my tray anyway I figured I'd give this app a shot.

I have a few issues with it, but in general I think it's a cool idea.

The first issue, is that you cannot turn off the feature which brings up the devices menu whenever you hover the mouse over the tray icon. I hate this feature with a passion and cannot figure out why there would be no option to remove it.

The second, less important issue, is that while it doesn't look bad, it also doesn't integrate very well with the Vista themes. It would be nice if it had a slightly more "elegant" appearance on Vista, such as incorporating the glass effect or using transparency. The beige window background doesn't really fit in down by the taskbar when it is themed.

I think you should add a Rename option to the right-click menu of devices, and then allow renaming directly in the pop-up menu rather than having to go into Properties to change the name. That would simply be a cool feature

Other than that, I really like the application and am considering either writing a full article about it or purchasing it in the near future.

I recommend anyone interested to give it a try.
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Ben

My Trac projects
My Wiki
[Broken] - My music

[Trubbleguy]

free licence for safety remove from 10th to 18th Feb about to start, one week only for free version 3.3
just thought you might like to know
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[NueveAmigo]

I've just got the license. Below the license request page:
http://safelyremove.com/giveawayweekp.htm

Type your name, email and you'll get email with license in a few hours.

[MindSpace]

I found it.

In XP,SP3 (and probably others):
- Method 1: "F: Properties" -> Hardware -> (Select USB Disk and click Properties) -> ...USB Device Properties -> Policies -> "Optimize for quick removal".
- Method 2: Device Manager -> Disk Drives -> Double-Click USB Disk -> Policies -> "Optimize for quick removal".

"This setting disables write caching on the disk and in Windows, so you can disconnect this device without using the Safe Removal icon."

- This appears to be the best option. As long as light is off and work has finished, you can pull it out.

[pajenn]

USB Safely Remove is a good program imo. I recently suffered a scrambled MP3 player because I pulled it out of my laptop even though Windows said it was busy. However, USB Safely Remove is ~3.4 MB (installer), whereas a 20 KB AHK script can perform the same basic functions (for my computer at least) - and since I always have my AHK perma-script running, I just added it to that. The scripts are below, but they need a lot of cleanup and updating. Also, it's not nearly as nice as USB Safely Remove. The goal would be to have an AHK version of that:

Edit: I made major changes to the script. e.g. replaced the auxiliary popup closer script with a pipe script function (kudos to HotkeyIt for the pipe technique).

[Piligrim]

Trying USB Safely Remove - interesting application, but not sure that is need to safely remove USB drives on Win XP or Vista