You receive a "Rundll32.exe has encountered a problem" error message, or the wrong USB device is removed when you try to remove a USB device on a Windows XP-based computer

When you use the Safely Remove Hardware program to remove a universal serial bus (USB) device, you may experience one of the following symptoms:

• You receive the following error message:
  Rundll32.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
• The wrong USB device is removed even though the USB device that you specified is still connected to your computer.

This problem occurs when the following conditions are true:

• You unplug the USB device from your computer while the USB service for that device is being stopped.
• You unplug the USB device before you receive confirmation from the Safely Remove Hardware program that the service is stopped and that the device is removed from Device Manager.

When you unplug the USB device before you receive this confirmation, the computer cannot find the USB device that you specified in the Safely Remove Hardware program. Therefore, the computer generates the error message that is mentioned in the "Symptoms" section, or the computer removes a different USB device.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Make sure that you use either the Add/Remove Hardware wizard or the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area to remove a USB device from Device Manager before you physically unplug it from your computer. When you correctly remove a device from the computer, you avoid the risk of data loss and the risk that the computer or the device will malfunction as the result of an unsafe removal procedure.

For more information about how to troubleshoot USB devices, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: