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FREE 'USB Safely Remove' Windows App

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Free licenses (worth US$20) being given away until 2pm this Wednesday AEST.
Just fill in your details and they will email you the license key (limit 1 email per IP).

Description from their website:

The main disadvantage of using built-in Windows safe removal tool is that in case of having several hot-plug devices it is quite difficult to recognize a needed to stop device - the most devices have the same name - "USB mass storage device". In addition, Windows does not let you hide a device you would not want to stop from the menu.
USB Safely Remove saves you from these problems and offers an original and multifunctional stopping menu, which displays actual device names with icons. Using this menu you can find and stop a device in a snap!

I was looking for a faster and better way to eject USB devices in Windows and came across this promo.

They also won a PC World magazine 100 Best Products of 2008 Award.

Related Stores

safelyremove.com
safelyremove.com

closed Comments

  • +3

    I don't see a use for this.. The way I eject my USB drive is by unplugging it.

  • +1

    Im with Broden, Ive always just pulled them out and have never had a problem

    • Urghhhh.. I've had important data vanish by doing that. Better spend that extra 10 seconds to remove it the proper way.

      • the best part is, it doesn't even take 10 seconds! :]

  • +1

    If you have vista or windows 7 you can just download the sidebar gadgets, this is if you are in dire needs for it.

  • Ah the pleasures of Mac OS X.

    • didn't know paying for software could be a pleasure, oh wait, you meant unplugging USB drives… ;)

    • +3

      Yeah - 'cos dragging a drive to the Garbage Bin to eject it makes so much sense. ;-)

      • or Command-E, or Eject Disk from a menu.. (which do make sense)

        I use both and both have their place, but in this case, the Windows way is much worse!

      • To be fair, it does change to an eject icon as soon as you start dragging the drive. It's quite clever & intuitive actually – why have an eject icon taking up space that you will so rarely use?

        In regards to the app this thread is about, it is a good idea. I've always hated the 'safely remove' dialog in Windows.

    • it's funny how mac fanbois always have to take a dig at windows. Both OSes have their pluses and minuses.

  • Cool app since its free, but I can't figure out the use?

    Windows XP has pretty good removal support for USB's, there is a copy bug where the copy window will finish before the copying is finished, so if you remove the usb, the file you copied will be corrupt. Not everyone gets this problem though.

    But for Windows Vista and Windows 7, I can't think of a reason why you would need this program.

    Useful for Windows 98/ME and even 2000 I guess?

    • +1

      vista / windows 7 came with 2 usb modes, one is performance (where data is buffered) and the other is for quick removal (where anything in the write queue is flushed asap)

      depending on what is set, but what the tool also appears to do is able to find out what processes is locking the files on your usb drive… i personally use unlocker (a free sw) to manage that. so this tool might be more suitable for someone who doesn't want to muck around with killing processes before ejecting a usb?

  • +2

    it's useful if you're the cautious type who likes to eject or safely remove your usb before physically unplugging it. in XP (and i think the same with Vista), if you use the standard tray icon, it doesn't show you which drive is which when you have several things plugged in - just the drive letters and you have to go find out which is which. i find that really annoying because i have a lot of usb things connected which is why i went out looking for something like this.
    there's also a bunch of other nifty things like shortcut keys to eject stuff even faster; telling you what processes have the drive locked if thats the case; and it also lets you eject individual cards if you have a card reader instead of the entire thing.
    i'm finding it really handy so far using it for the past day. there are some other freeware around but they don't have as many features.

    • nice quick review.
      will positive for that reason and download it just in case it comes handy

    • what's your record for usb things connected? ;)

      i assign unique drive letters to each usb storage device so i can recognize them. even when i've had five plugged in at the same time.

      • you don't need to have that many - its just that that the windows util for removing them isn't very helpful. if you use the single-left-click method you see all these "USB Mass Storage Device - Drive(X:)" and don't know which is which; and if use the double-click method you need to go into yet another dialog before being able to stop the desired device.
        i've also got 2 card readers that are connected by default because they're part of the monitors and this app lets me hide them since i'd rarely ever want to disconnect those.
        assigning drive letters is a good idea and i do that for usb drives i use often - but when thats not the case like someone gives you their key to copy something, this app becomes useful

    • I find that the most recent device I plug in get assign the last letter. So if you have F, G, H then H is the most recent USB device.

      • i think windows usually remembers the drive letter it first assigns to a particular drive and reassigns it unless its already taken

  • I can't believe such a simple operation wasn't designed better/more logically/user friendly in Windows. No wonder we have to install/maintain so many "utilities" afterwards…

    • you do realize you can just pull it out as long as it's finished writing? I've been doing that since XP came out in 2001.

  • many people will find that using larger USB drives with NTFS presents numerous problems, one being that Windows is utterly f**king useless at — safely disconnecting drives — you may be surprised to find gigabytes of your video files broken and unplayable, archives and ISO images unrecognised and other smaller files just vanish into the nether… all thanks to microsoft's incredibly shortsighted approach to emerging technology.
    this issue also occurs with smaller FAT formatted drives, you can still inadvertently remove a drive without doing the safely-remove-hoops-routine, and lose precious data — most often it happens when you are in a hurry to get to a meeting or leave the office, and arrive at the other end to find… nothing!

    hopefully this little tool does what it's supposed to — only time will tell!

    • hmm i fortunately haven't had that problem so far - i just make sure the light on my USB drive isn't still flashing when i pull it out.

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