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Win XP Unplug/Eject Hardware Icon

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by thumbsup2

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I have a computer which insists on hiding the "Safely unplug/eject hardware" icon that normally sits in the system tray when something like a USB thumb drive is plugged in. Clicking it would normally give you the ability to stop the hardware before unplugging it. However, the icon disappears shortly after the device is plugged in, so we can't use the icon to stop it. We have to go through the device manager to eventually find where we can stop it.

I've searched the MS Knowledgebase for help, but found only instructions that reference add/remove hardware for Win 2K. Since Win XP no longer has the "remove" hardware wizard, the instructions don't apply and I can never get to the place where there should be a checkbox to turn the icon back on.

I've searched the registry for a key of any kind that I could turn on/off, but don't see one.

Anybody have any idea how to turn that icon back on so we don't have to go through the long drawn out proceedure of getting to the place where we can stop the device?

Thanks,
Pat

6 replies

by jesus_c

Try runnign this command (Start>Run):

RUNDLL32 SHELL32.DLL,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

That should open the hotplug.dll. Then make sure that "Show
Unplug/Eject icon on the taskbar" is checked. If that doesn't work go
through the Control Panel Add/Remove Hardware and select the
"Uninstall/Unplug a device" option and follow right through to the last
screen, there you will be shown an option to have the icon in the
taskbar. Tip: If you use the Add/Remove hardware option, you have to
have something to unplug in order to make it to the last screen where
the option can be unabled. Using the rundll32 method opens the
hotplug.dll even if no devices are attached.

by thumbsup2

None of your suggestions, or any of the others that I was able to find elsewhere after looking for months and months, would work.

When we tried the RUNDLL32 suggestion, the "show unplug/eject icon" option was checked, but grayed out.

When we tried the Control Panel Add/Remove Hardware suggestion, the Uninstall/Unplug option was missing.

The only way we could "stop" the device and unplug it was to go through the back door in device manager.

We finally fixed the problem though. :D The machine was wiped and restored to factory image, then brought back up to date one patch at a time, including user software and their patches, checking the response of the devices after each patch. So far, the problem has not returned.

I can only conclude that the order in which the patches/software had originally been applied had hammered some setting somewhere. Perhaps we didn't hold our mouth just right when applying them. We'll probably never know exactly what originally caused the problem.

by i782me502

I've just developed the same problem and following suggestions down the line - the registering of the dll didn't work for me. I can browse to the device, right click and EJECT but when I remove the device I get the removal sound that I don't get when I do the safely remove route.

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