I have 3 USB ports on my laptop, 2 are not recognizing anything I plug in, I remember reading here some time ago, there is a program for cleaning them safely,i.e uninstalling all old devices.
I have googled them, there are so many. I saw one that was reported as a virus on download-cdnet, so now im sceptical, are there any that anyone has used and could recommend ?
I have 3 USB ports on my laptop, 2 are not recognizing anything I plug in, I remember reading here some time ago, there is a program for cleaning them safely,i.e uninstalling all old devices.
Hi Charliebeth,
No program is needed in any Microsoft OS.
If you have ports that seem to be dedicated to other hardware, there should be a "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on the task bar. If you cannot see it there, right click the taskbar and select "customize" and scroll down the list of programs or past programs until you find "Safely Remove Hardware" . Set it to "always show". You can now use that feature to clear your USB ports.
Alternatively, plug in a USB device (a thumb drive is good), open your start menu and click on "Computer". Right click the USB device and select properties > policies which will bring up "Write caching and safe removal page". Make sure "Optimize for quick removal" is selected, not "Optimize for performance".
On that page you can also click on "Safely Remove Hardware" which will put that icon back into your taskbar.
Cheers,
Lee
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