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I found this in a few different places around the 'net - hopefully it's helpful:

Remove Icons for USB Devices from Notification Area

If you have an USB device attached to your system, you will notice an icon in the notification area. When you click this icon, you're given the option to stop your hardware before you unplug it. It's possible that you never unplug this hardware.

  • Right-click within the notification area, and then click Properties.
  • In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab, and then click Advanced.
  • On the Taskbar tab, click Customize.
  • Select Safely remove hardware, and in the Behavior column, click Always hide.
  • You may also hide the icon for a particular USB device by right-clicking its icon on the taskbar, and then clicking Hide Icon.

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. This is the name for a class of hardware that makes it easy to add peripheral devices (such as a mouse, keyboard, joystick, or digital camera) to your computer. If your mouse, keyboard, game controller, scanner, or other device has a USB connector, you can plug it into a USB port.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by allgold26

Dani AI

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’s suggestion is the usual GUI route for hiding the Safely Remove Hardware icon, but that control doesn’t always remove the icon permanently. The tray icon is shown when Windows thinks a removable device is present (and the behavior and UI have changed across XP → Vista → 7/10/11), so a simple “hide” via the notification-area dialog can appear ineffective if a driver or device forces the icon on. (support.microsoft.com)

Common, low-risk diagnostics that address the situation described by include confirming the drive’s removal policy and identifying the specific device that keeps the icon present. Many external drives can be set to “Quick removal” so ejecting via the tray becomes optional (this is exposed in Device Manager → device Properties → Policies). Some peripherals (card readers, built-in hubs, certain USB dongles) also advertise themselves as removable; in those cases the item remains in the Safely Remove list until the device/driver presentation is changed. (learn.microsoft.com)

When the GUI route doesn’t work, two commonly used advanced approaches are: (a) hide the icon via a small registry tweak that toggles the tray services bit (this is a session-level change often automated at logon), and (b) edit the device’s Enum/Capabilities entry so Windows no longer treats it as a removable mass-storage device. The registry tweak used by many administrators is the Services DWORD under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\SysTray (change value to 29 and refresh the tray); scheduling that at logon makes it persistent across sessions. Editing a device’s Capabilities in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum... will stop that device from appearing in the remove list, but requires caution and ownership of the key. (woshub.com)

Caveats: registry or Enum edits can be reset by updates, require backups, and — most importantly — removing the tray affordance only shifts responsibility: if a device is configured for write-caching (“Better performance”), removing the icon without changing policies increases the risk of data loss. Back up the registry and create a restore point before making changes; where available, Group Policy (Pro/Enterprise) is the cleaner admin option. These suggestions directly address why ’s GUI method might have failed and show safe alternatives and trade-offs. (support.microsoft.com)

Member Avatar for allgold26

Hi, thanks for the help but it hasn't worked and you're honestly not the first person to suggest doing it that way. Have you or anyone found another way of removing this icon from the toolbar??

I found this in a few different places around the 'net - hopefully it's helpful:

Remove Icons for USB Devices from Notification Area

If you have an USB device attached to your system, you will notice an icon in the notification area. When you click this icon, you're given the option to stop your hardware before you unplug it. It's possible that you never unplug this hardware.

  • Right-click within the notification area, and then click Properties.
  • In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Appearance tab, and then click Advanced.
  • On the Taskbar tab, click Customize.
  • Select Safely remove hardware, and in the Behavior column, click Always hide.
  • You may also hide the icon for a particular USB device by right-clicking its icon on the taskbar, and then clicking Hide Icon.

USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. This is the name for a class of hardware that makes it easy to add peripheral devices (such as a mouse, keyboard, joystick, or digital camera) to your computer. If your mouse, keyboard, game controller, scanner, or other device has a USB connector, you can plug it into a USB port.

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