Microsoft Finally Capitulated the USB Safe Removal

In a battle so old most users no longer think about it, Microsoft has moved away from requiring safe removal for USB flash drives. The original intent behind safe removal was to prevent data loss if a user unplugged a drive before an active write operation had completed.

In practice, data loss was uncommon unless a large file was actively being transferred, but it is notable to see Microsoft finally adapt to real-world user behavior.

The update that introduced this change arrived with Windows 10 version 1809. If you are unsure which version of Windows you are running, right-click the Windows icon in the lower-left corner of your screen and select System.

From the resulting screen, you can view the installed version of your operating system.

If your system is not yet on version 1809 and you would like to update, search for Windows Update and follow the prompts provided in the update window.

This update also eliminates the recurring warning messages that appear when reconnecting a USB device that was not formally ejected, messages that suggest the drive may have a problem and should be scanned.

Those warnings stem from Windows indexing behavior designed to improve efficiency. We previously published a detailed post explaining how to disable that indexing feature entirely.

Photo courtesy of USBCopier.com (spinner USB drive).