How can I change "Safely removed hardware" notification....

In Windows XP, when removing a USB drive from the computer, the 'Safely remove hardware' notification appears as a pop-up bubble and fades away later. In Windows Vista, the notification comes up as a window/box, and requires me to press the 'OK' button for it to go away.

Is there a way to change how this notification behaves? So that when I do remove the hardware, it appears as a bubble in Vista instead of a box?


Edit - For example

 

Did you try going to the hardware's properties (USB key for instance) and set it to "optimize for safe removal"? This way you shouldn't get these messages. External drives etc. are often set too "optimize for performance" where the safely remove hardware function should be used to prevent damaging the hardware.

 

Keep in mind that you also won't be able to placate your paranoid tendencies by clicking on "Safely remove hardware" anymore, either; once it's optimized for safe removal it doesn't appear in the removal lineup any more.

 

Really? On my machine it does... am I doing something wrong?

I tell it to optimize a drive for quick removal, and it still appears under safely remove hardware. (I ignore it though.)

But... regarding the original question of bubble vs. box... I think Vista just displays bubbles in a more box-like way... I don't think you can change that.

 

I suppose if it really mattered (either to you, or to me) we could compare notes and find out what the differences are - at least if we're both talking about XP (which is where I saw the behaviour I mentioned) - if that's been changed on _Vista, then I'll be perfectly happy being wrong (when you're married you get used to that state of affairs pretty quickly, or you get divorced pretty quickly ).

 

lol, ok you're right, I was talking about Vista, on Vista for me the drive appears in the safely remove hardware menu no matter what I do, which surprises me... I might be missing something though, I don't know.

You can of course yank the drive's USB cord out without bothering to do the safely remove thing... which I sometimes do when I set optimize for quick removal or whatever it's called.

 

Be careful. My niece just pulled hers out with out safely removing and borked part of her term paper. Good thing she only got a page or so completed!

 

Good point... I would only do it after checking the option to optimize the drive for quick removal... and even then I'd say it's still a risk (though probably less of one).

The only reason I do it at all is that sometimes I can't safely remove a drive without shutting down the computer... every time I try to do safely remove, it'll always tell me the drive is in use even though I can't find any program that should be using it.

 

I got the same problem all the time on XP; I think it might have something to do with a file handle that wasn't properly closed when the issuing app was closed. About the only way I know to diagnose something like that is to use SysInternals' Process Explorer and try to identify the dangling file handle.

 

So there is now way of changing this?

I'm not really looking for a way to eliminate the notification entirely, just a different way as to how it notifies me.

 

LOL...it still appears in my list though, but just pulling the plug doesn't get me sweating, i have plenty other neurotic tendancies

 

hehehe...yup, in vista it stays, in win7 too. No councelling necessary

 

I guess the appearance just comes with the OS. You can try stuff like ThemeXP and what not but that'll change your complete appearance.