Sometimes, the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” menu in the system tray shows devices that the user doesn’t need to remove, such as USB network adapters, Type-C monitors, SATA/SSD drives (marked as removable media), USB sound cards, or even mice. If you want to remove that specific device from the Safely Remove Hardware list in Windows 11/10, follow this easy guide.
Remove a Specific Device from the Safely Remove Hardware List in Windows 11/10
Press Win + R, type devmgmt.msc, and hit Enter to open Device Manager.
Find the device you want to hide (e.g., a TP-Link Wireless USB Adapter), right-click on it, and select Properties.
Navigate to the Details tab, select Hardware IDs from the drop-down menu, right-click, and copy the device’s ID (e.g., USB\VEN_10DE&DEV_2486&SUBSYS_147A10DE&REV_A1).
Press Win + R, type regedit, and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor. Go to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB
Find the key that corresponds to your device and expand it. Inside, locate the Capabilities parameter and change its value to 60 (Hex). If the device key has nested subkeys, repeat this step for each. This prevents the device from appearing in the Safely Remove Hardware list.
Remove using a Scheduled Task
After restarting, the Capabilities (in the registry) value may revert to its original state. To ensure the device stays hidden, create a scheduled task to modify the registry on startup automatically.
Open the Task Scheduler (taskschd.msc), or run the following command, replacing the registry key path with your device’s path:
schtasks /create /tn "Remove_TPLinkUSBAdapter_Safe_Removal" /sc ONSTART /ru SYSTEM /rl HIGHEST /tr "reg.exe add 'HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_2357&PID_010C\00E04C0001' /v Capabilities /t reg_dword /d 0x00000060 /f"
This ensures the specified device will automatically be hidden from the Safely Remove Hardware list after each restart.
Read: Show or hide Safely Remove Hardware icon
How to safely remove a device from Terminal?
If you still need to safely eject the device, use the following command to open the Safely Remove dialog: RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll. This will allow you to stop and unplug the device safely when necessary.
Read: How to create Safely Remove Hardware Shortcut to eject USB
Why is there no eject option for USB?
If you cannot find the eject option for the USB, you need to disable USB selective suspend in the Power Options. To do so, go to Power Options in the Control Panel, click on “Change plan settings,” then “Change advanced power settings.” Expand “USB settings” and disable this option.
