Device Unplug Shortcut-For removing Flash Drives and Other removable drives

Here’s a tip that may interest those of you using Windows Vista, forever inserting and ejecting flash drives and other removable media..



After a time, it gets to be a real pain having to click on the tiny Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray to bring up it’s eponymously named dialogue box to select the device you want safely removed. This is the recommended procedure to take if you want to safely unplug a removable storage device without fear of data loss.

This process tells Windows that the device needs to be removed and this will prompt it to complete any differed/pending write operations to the device in question, thus assuring the completeness of one’s data on the device.

Creating an easy to click shortcut

Simply right-click on your desktop and select New -> Shortcut to create a shortcut on your desktop, and in the prompt window type the following line:

RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Click Next, choose an appropriate name then click Finish.

If you would prefer a more appropriate icon for the shortcut, right-click the resultant shortcut the you created, select properties, under the Shortcut tab click the Change Icon… button, type in the following path and click Ok:

%windir%\system32\HotPlug.dll

The first icon should suit nicely

..and that’s it – a more user-friendly removable hardware disconnection icon!