5 replies to this topic

[JDPower]

I've just noticed the 'Safely Remove Hardware' tray icon has gone from my tray and I can't find anyway to get it back. I don't even get the 'bing bong' sound when plugging in a new device, though all devices are working fine. Its not hidden (I've checked) and I've Googled and can't find a solution (found a temporary workaround but its not the same).

Anyone any ideas?
(WinXP Home)

[JohnDemolition]

why do you even want it? it's almost useless.

[hazelnut]

Is this the workaround you found?

EDIT sorry JD link won't work!

Other people solved it by disabling universal plug and play, or making sure the volume control was also in the taskbar

[JDPower]

Well it seems one of the fixes I tried must have worked, but needed a reboot as I've just turned computer on today and the icon is back.
For future reference one of the fixes I found was to go to 'Add/remove windows components'>Networking services and remove UPnP. Mine was alredy unticked so I added it again, then removed it.
The other possibility was to open the 'Safely Remove...' dialogue via 'Start>Run' - Enter "RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll" into the run box, this will bring up the 'Safely remove....' window. Apparently doing that alone can sometimes bring it back. Either way it took a restart to actually bring it back. The workaround was to create a shortcut using the above command (I can't link to the article explaining this but if you Google 'Safely remove hardware workaround' it should be at the top)

JohnDemolition, on Nov 12 2006, 08:30 PM, said:

why do you even want it? it's almost useless.

Its essential to me. I use a usb modem and sometimes adding or removing something from another usb port without safely removing it seems to interrupt the signal to my modem causing my net connection to drop out.

[hazelnut]

Glad you had some success JD.
Was the article in the "Ask Leo" webpage as that is where I found one of my links, but the link wouldn't work.

Diabling UPnP seems to be the one that worked for most people.

[JDPower]

hazelnut, on Nov 13 2006, 06:15 PM, said:

Glad you had some success JD.
Was the article in the "Ask Leo" webpage as that is where I found one of my links, but the link wouldn't work.

Diabling UPnP seems to be the one that worked for most people.

Yup, it was on Ask Leo, but as you said you can't link to it directly. Just thought I should post what seemed to solve it for me, and point out a reboot may be necessary for the fixes to work (and also that even if UPnP is disabled it may be worth enabling it again and then disabling it ), in case its of use to anyone else who may stumble across this.