I’ve lived on the edge for years, ignoring Windows’ incessant messages to ‘Safely Remove’ whatever USB storage device I have connected to my desktop.
It seems I was on the right side of history because the Windows 10 ‘version 1809’ updates Microsoft’s desktop operating system’s default setting for USB and Thunderbolt devices.
Previous versions of Windows included a setting called ‘Better Performance’ that resulted in caching on external devices. As a result, the operating system required you to ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ before popping it from a device’s USB port.
Now, the default setting has been shifted to ‘Quick Removal,’ allowing you to pull USB storage devices from your computer immediately. Given that I’ve already been doing this for almost two decades with a gleeful reckless abandon, nothing has really changed for me.
If you want to hop in a time machine and reenable Windows’ ‘Safely Remove’ feature, follow the instructions below, as noted by ZDNet:
1. Connect the USB device your computer.
2. Right-click ‘Start’ and select ‘File Explorer.’
3. In ‘File Explorer,’ identify the letter or label that is associated with the device (for example, USB Drive (D:)).
4. Right-click ‘Start’ and select ‘Disk Management.’
5. In the lower section of the ‘Disk Management’ window right-click the label of the device and click ‘Properties.’
6. Select ‘Policies,’ and then choose the policy you want to use, according to Microsoft.
Image credit: Microsoft
