Cannot Safely Remove is so Annoying
June 26, 2007 by Milo Riano
Filed under Computers
It is so annoying since the days of Windows XP whenever a “cannot safely remove” warning pops up when removing USB flash drives even if no files were opened in it. There was always a delay when Windows XP can detect all files have been closed.
Here comes Vista, the picture above tells the same story from time to time. I cannot understand why it pops that message when all I have done was copy a file using explorer. Also, after closing all explorer Windows it still pops up that message.
The only positive thing is that, it isn’t happening as often as it did on Windows XP.
I am maximum frustrated with microsoft! There are messages in my new vista mail box that I CANNOT delete- one is stuck in the send box and I cannot send anything out- no solutions, not from hp – their folks have no options for help without doing a restore to my computer which will erase everything and take hours. Not from the geek squad- they charge for time even if you bought the high dollar warranty for the computer and not from microsoft ” we trained the staff at hp to work on the software- we are not responsible for supporting our software”- even when it has bugs!!! And no service pack available for several months! I am ready to join a class action suit against microsoft- I cannot believe they can send out this software with bugs which take a lot of my money and time to fix- (time is money, you know)- does anyone know of a suit that has been started? Thanks ahead!
I’ve noticed that this warning will happen consistently under certain conditions, though I’m not entirely certain which ones, yet.
Either way, another consistency I’ve noticed is that if there really isn’t anything open, the first attempt to eject usually fails, and second attempt to eject almost always succeeds.
I have the same problem when trying to remove a USB hard drive. I have tracked it down to a Vista program running in the background – wmpnetwk.exe
This is the Windows Media Network Sharing Service.
Open task manager, show processes for all users, and down the bottom, shut down wmpnetwk.exe
Then use “safely remove” quickly, as wmpnetwk.exe will self startup after a few seconds.
Cant see a permanent fix at Microsoft, so it obviously doesn’t happen as far as they are concerned – really????