Windows 7 Safely Remove USB

So I'm sure a lot of you have noticed but ever since windows Vista (and now in Windows 7), safely removing a flash drive with an LED light will no longer turn it off. This feature was great in XP as I could always tell if I had already safely removed my USB drive or not but any machine running Windows 7 will not turn off the light. Does anyone know if there is a fix for this or if microsoft plans to do anything about it?

Can't say as I've noticed TBH, so have just checked on my system, I have 2 thumb drives, one the light goes out unless in use, the other is lit all the time, so I suspect this may be more a feature of the thumb drive you have than the OS, but as long as you get the all clear message after using the safe remove option, you will be fine, hope this helps a bit anyway.

Well I suspect the latest USB drives will work on Windows 7 but I have tested it with several different USB drives by different makers and they all do the same thing. I have also tested on several different machines running Windows 7. I'm not concerned about whether or not its actually safely removed though because I believe your right, it still is. I just wish there was a way to make it work for the older flash drives.

Well I suspect the latest USB drives will work on Windows 7 but I have tested it with several different USB drives by different makers and they all do the same thing. I have also tested on several different machines running Windows 7. I'm not concerned about whether or not its actually safely removed though because I believe your right, it still is. I just wish there was a way to make it work for the older flash drives.

Prior to removal of the drive, do you see a safety remove icon in the lower right corner or systray?
Click the teeny triangle and it will open up a customize box where you should find the safety disconnect icon.
It should be ok if the ok to remove appears.
Have you ever formatted the drive?

I'm not sure if write caching in W7 is enabled by default (?), but I think it was in my W7 Since disabling write caching, I've never had a problem with connecting, disconnecting or reading USB Drives. Although, having write cashing enabled slightly increases drive performance, there are data loss risks in the event of sudden power failure. This may or may not help with your USB drive issues. Disable write caching in W7 1. Start Windows Explorer 2. Right-click your Local Disk and select Properties 3. Click on the Hardware tab 4. Select your hard drive and click on Properties 5. Click the Policies tab 6. Uncheck the box "Enable write caching on the disk" NOTE: Enabling write caching generates the following warning. "By enabling write caching, file system corruption and/or data loss could occur if the machine experiences a power, device or system failure and cannot be shutdown properly". Cheers, Lee