No more Safe to Remove Hardware banner (toast)

I've seen this complaint many times, but never had it. Now I do. When I have any device plugged in to a USB port, the device icon appears in the tray. When I right-click the icon, I get the balloon that offers "Eject <whatever it is>." When I click Eject, I've always had a banner (toast) pop up that says, "Safe to Remove Hardware" and some other stuff. Now, all I get is a "notification" that I have to click the clock or bell to see, way up on the right hand side of the screen.

How do I get my banners back?

(I know I can safely remove devices without clicking the icon if my settings allow that, but I've recently had a problem with USB-attached externals, and I changed that setting.)

Hello Dan,

Check you notification settings to make sure any Windows Explorer and/or Windows host process (Rundll32) items with the eject icon like below are turned on.

If you don't have any of those above to turn on, then check this below in Registry Editor (regedit.exe):

1 Go to the key below in Registry Editor.


2 Check each NotifyIconGeneratedAumid_########## subkey to see if has a Enabled DWORD set to 0.

3 If it does, delete only the Enabled DWORD for the key to turn on notifications for it.

Oddly enough, I have neither the hsot process nor the Explorer in my list.

Okay. I'm off to the registry. Back soon.

Wisewiz said:

Oddly enough, I have neither the hsot process nor the Explorer in my list.

Okay. I'm off to the registry. Back soon.

Click to expand...

You don't need the banner. If the balloon disappears when you click "Eject", you're good to go.

None of my NIGAumid_ ones have Enabled values to delete. I noticed that Windows System Host Autoplay had one, and I dumped that one while I was in there.

Wisewiz said:

How do I get my banners back?

Click to expand...

I've never experienced this issue since installing Build (22631.2861) from when first released.

It does disappear when I click Eject (unless, ofc, it's still doing sthg). I'll remember that, @Ghot. Thanks.

@IanMosley

Well, that's what I've got, and that's what I'm experiencing.

Wisewiz said:

It does disappear when I click Eject (unless, ofc, it's still doing sthg). I'll remember that, @Ghot. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I turned OFF, every notification I could find.
It took me a while to figure it out, to test in multiple scenarios.
As long as the balloon disappears, you can pull the USB stick out, with no problems.

With every notification disabled... I still get the Notification blob above the calendar.
There's never anything IN that blob, but I can't seem to get rid of it.

I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the only blobs I get are for Macrium (Backup Started, Success) and for USB devices (Safe to Remove), and the latter are gone now, but I have almost all of the notifications turned ON. (????)

I'd just like to get back to having the little stinkers show up when I expect them to.

Wisewiz said:

I'd just like to get back to having the little stinkers show up when I expect them to.

Click to expand...

No... this is the stuff I want to get rid of...

@Ghot

I understand. I sympathize. I'd like to get rid of those, too, but I'd like my USB banners back.

BTW, the MR banners used to be informative, with a report of the time it took to complete the task(s). Now they just report "Success." You have to use Ctrl Alt M to see the time it took, or open the app and look at the logs. Blech.

I'm still getting the banner/popup but only when a USB drive is plugged in. The icon in the Notification Area does not appear until a drive is plugged in like I saw in Win10, this is on a 3-week-old Win11 Notebook.

@Berton

Yeah, I get that one when the device icon is in the tray. But the one I'm trying to get back is the one that you get after you right-click the icon and click "Eject ..." in the "balloon" (the name for the washed-out white ones). It used to pop up all nicely colored and bright, and say "Safe to Remove Hardware." Now it doesn't say, and it doesn't pop.

I've not had a failure to get the pop-out message.

Well, I get it on System 1, but not (any more) on System 2 (see My Computers), and I don't think I changed any settings that would account for the difference between the two machines.

But I DID have a serious (apparently hardware-related) issue with USB-connected drives on System 2, until I cracked the case and fiddled a bunch of stuff earlier today. Now all is well. But no toast.

I still have the "safe to remove" when I right click the little USB drive icon: