From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2019 11:44 AM
To: main@jfw.groups.io
Subject: Re: System Tray Icons, How to Rearrange in Windows 10

On Sat, Mar 16, 2019 at 02:22 PM, Bill White wrote:

Safely Remove Hardware icon to show up, and it isn’t there, then you must shut down your system to safely remove the inserted hardware.

I'm not arguing with anything else but this.   The Eject/Safely Remove Hardware function is an anachronism in all but the very rarest of circumstances.  All the way back to Windows 7 Microsoft changed the default behavior for USB connected devices to stop caching writes, because people were doing "the natural thing" and pulling out jump drives and external USB drives once it appeared all activity had ceased.  The problem was if the last activity had been write, the final block of data might not be written unless you ejected.

I just went through all this in the topic, Ejecting Hard Drives and Flash Drives ....., on Bleeping Computer when it came up the other day.  It won't hurt to use Eject, but it's utterly unnecessary on most systems unless someone has done customizations to go back to write caching for USB devices.  You can verify this for yourself for any USB drive you happen to have plugged in by bringing up its Properties, Hardware Tab, Properties button in the Hardware Tab, General Tab in that Properties dialog, Change Settings button, then, finally, the Policies tab in this final Properties dialog.  The radio button for, Quick Removal (default), will be chosen unless someone has tweaked the Windows installation defaults, and this is described as:  Disables write caching on the device and in Windows, but you can disconnect the device safely without using the Safely Remove Hardware notification icon.

I haven't used the eject function literally in decades provided I know that there is no active writing going on to a given thumb drive or external HDD connected via USB.  It's an extra step that, while it won't hurt, generally does nothing unless you were to be in the process of actively writing to the drive, then the eject will not be permitted until that's done.
 
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Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1809, Build 17763  

   Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

         ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore