Using 'safely remove hardware' feels like going back 10 years...

[Dave]

Hi Guys,

Most of my life with XP and usb disks was great, being able to set the disk
as 'optimised for fast removal' in the computer->(c
disk)->properties->hardware->properties->policy tab.

I got really used to this, and now have an unhealthy habit of just pulling
out USB devices, rather than hunting down the 128 pixels amongst the 2457600
on my screen which I need to aim and click at to remove the disk. (who
thinks this stuff up?!?). However, in Vista, that option is now ghosted out.

What gives? Where's it gone? Why can't I change it? Is this MS's mistaken
attempt to duplicate showstopping OSX bugs they've misinterpreted as
desirable features?

 

[KDE]

agreed, I know it's there for my three USB drives, because I changed it to
"set for performance" to increase speed. (vista business)

 

[Dave]

Mark and Not You, thanks for your replies.

I've tried this with Sony MagicGate cards (two in total), with USB flash
disks (Kingston, super-bog-standard), USB HDDS (again, super generic IDE to
USB adapters which even XP would pick up without asking for drivers), and
firewire disks.

They're all FAT filesystems too.

What I'm *hoping* is that these policies have been moved elsewhere, and
require administrative access to get to them, which the properties tab
doesn't grant. I'm hoping this, because I'm also hoping that I'll stumble
into these policies somewhere else.

d

 

[Dave]

It is possible you need admin rights. To get that, open Control Panel >
Adminstrative Tools, right click on Computer Management and choose Run as
administrator. Then access Device Manager from there, and you should have
admin access. See if the option is enabled then.

Mark, you're a genius. That's exactly how to get to it. Thanks for the
insight, and making it public here.

So many different ways to get the same things in vista...

d