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The Safely Remove Hardware feature does not stop power from being provided to a USB device in Windows Vista

Article ID: 971899 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

A USB device such as a USB flash drive is connected to your Windows Vista-based computer. After you click the Safely Remove Hardware icon to remove the device, a message is displayed to tell you that you can safely disconnect the device.

However, the USB device is still powered on. The power indicator for the USB device is still on. You would expect the power indicator to show that the USB device is powered off.

Notes

You may experience this issue with any USB device that has a power indicator.
When you click Safely Remove Hardware in Windows XP, the power indicator turns off and the USB device powers off.

CAUSE

The Safely Remove Hardware feature does not stop power from being provided to a USB device in Windows Vista. By design, the port to which the device is attached is not suspended in Windows Vista when the device is soft removed.