IDEA: A USB device manager that makes sense

[superboyac]

You know how there's that icon in the system tray for "Safely Remove USB device"?  And then you click on it and remove the device, but if you have more than one, it disconnects all of them?  And also, it's annoying how you see the list of devices and it looks like you can select one and just disconnect that one, but it doesn't really work that way?

So, the idea is to make a usb device manager that makes it easy to connect/disconnect the usb devices.  Maybe it already exists, but I couldn't find one.  I'd basically like to see a list of the usb devices and I could select one or many of them and click disconnect.  Also, if at all possible, maybe I could reconnect a device without having to reboot.  Does it sound reasonable?

Thanks.

[f0dder]

Hrm, on my XP system only the device I select is removed?

[brotherS]

Hrm, on my XP system only the device I select is removed?

Same here (W2k), maybe we don't get what he tried to say? Screenshots would be helpful.

[mouser]

also note that this tray item has both a double click and right click action, and ALSO a single left click action which lets you quickly select a device to disconnect.

[noth(a)nk.you]

On my XP Pro SP2, the single-click method seems to work just fine.

However, I usually only have one removable item at a time (the external HD doesn't detach nicely).

Could you be more specific (e.g. screenshots) on the steps leading to your problem?  That might prove helpful in diagnosing your problem.

[jgpaiva]

Hrm, on my XP system only the device I select is removed?

I'm on XP SP2 here too. I think all devices are removed, but then, reconected. At least, i noticed that my usb modem got disconected every time i removed my usb pen, but it didn't look removed from the system, because all leds were active. My guess is that XP momentaneuslly removes all devices for a very short period of time, and then reconects them all.
Not sure, though

[Hirudin]

I use the single left click method all the time with removable hard drives and USB drives. It works just as it should with those.

If you need to eject a memory card from a memory card reader don't use the "safely remove hardware" icon, eject the card from within windows explorer (just right click the drive and choose eject).

[superboyac]

Thanks for the tip everyone, I think it was just a post out of frustration at the time.  I realize now that you have the ability to disconnect single devices.  Sorry.