Missing 'Safely Remove Hardware' Icon

Here's a quick Windows' Tip. To properly remove a USB device, you should use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon which is located in the notification area of the task bar. The notification area is in the lower right corner, that is, the area where the clock is.

Simply unplugging a device without using 'Safely Remove Hardware' can cause damage to your files if, say, you are using an external USB storage device.

However, if the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon is missing from the notification area, you can simply:

Press 'Start'(Also called the 'Windows Button')>Run>Then type 'RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll'

Now you can select the USB device that you wish to remove.

If you find that you need to do this often, you might want to create a desktop Shortcut. To do this, Right click an empty area on your desktop, Select 'New', then 'Shortcut', in the 'Type the location of the item:' dialog box enter 'RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll'. Enter a name for your shortcut and you are finished.

Double-click your new shortcut any time you need to remove a USB device.