On 8/18/25 9:41 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card:

1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I never eject from explorer. I use the 'safe to remove' icon in the systray. It it's not
there then look at the ^ arrow for see hidden items. It can be made 'not hidden' if you
want. That's the icon I ALWAYS use and have had zero issue.

--
Linux Mint 22.1, Thunderbird 128.13.0esr, Mozilla Firefox 141.0.3
Alan K.

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On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:41:18 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver"
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card:

1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

Can't answer your question but whenever I've finished with a USB stick
I just remove it. Have done for years and never had any problems.

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Peter,

whenever I've finished with a USB stick I just remove it.
Have done for years and never had any problems.

Try that with an USB connected drive, and you will likely get a different result.

FYI, USB attached storage can be configured for speed (buffering reads and writes) or for quick removal (not buffering writes). Thumbdrives are by default configured for the latter.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser



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On Mon, 8/18/2025 9:41 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card:

1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

Notice this post is from the year 2017. So this has happened before.
The design details of the OS, in dated material, may have changed.

https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/79757-safely-remove-hardware-icon-taskbar-has-disappeared.html

"Have a look in Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Notifications area > Select which icons appear on the taskbar.
Look for "Windows Explorer Safely remove hardware and eject media". If its set to off toggle it to ON.
When off it only shows up if you click the up arrow in the notifications area, its semi hidden.
"

You can also look at one of these sorts of things.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/59550-create-safely-remove-hardware-shortcut-windows-10-a.html

" %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll "

That's the sort of executable activity that makes the Safely Remove system function.

*******

The best USB sticks, are ones with unambiguous activity LEDs.
No, I'm not referring to the USB sticks that "breathe" when
there is no activity, and the LED light level slowly rises and
falls. A good USB stick LED (OCZ Rally2 8GB yellow indicator LED),
it only flashes when the stick is active, and the LED goes
off when the stick has lost power or has been ejected.

The behavior of that LED has changed from one release of Windows 10
to another. I think today, the power may go off to the stick (properly)
when it is ejected. There was a time in the past, where WinXP could
turn the power off, but Windows 10 left the power on the stick and
the LED was still lit, even though it was in Safely Remove state.

Paul

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On 8/18/2025 12:09 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

On 2025/8/18 15:34:7, Alan K. wrote:

On 8/18/25 9:41 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card: >>>
1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting >>> a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I never eject from explorer. I use the 'safe to remove' icon in the systray. It it's not
there then look at the ^ arrow for see hidden items. It can be made 'not hidden' if you
want. That's the icon I ALWAYS use and have had zero issue.

I wondered if someone would come up with that one! I don't have the "^"
- I have the tray set to always show all icons. (My tray currently has
18 - two rows of 9 - icons in it. [I have a double-height taskbar.])

Yes, I would use that icon - _if_ it was there. See my point 1 (which
was half the reason for starting this thread): it has stopped appearing. Fortunately, for now, Eject is there in explorer - and I see no harm in
using it; it's what it's there for. (It isn't there for fixed drives
such as C:.) It's just normally _quicker_ to use the tray one.

If the device is working properly and recognized by windows, normally
you would right click on the taskbar and click on taskbar settings.
Scroll down to notification area and click on select which icons appear
on the taskbar. Look for the Windows Explorer: Safely remove hardware
and eject media and make sure it is still clicked on.

If it doesn't show up, the device is not being recognized properly for
some reason. For example, I use a USB wireless mouse and the radio
plugged in does not give the remove icon. If I stick in a working flash drive, it will appear and give the option to safely remove, and once I
do it disappears like I have set up.

Have you tried any other known working hardware?


--
Science doesn't support Darwin. Scientists do.

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On 8/18/2025 1:28 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Have you tried any other known working hardware?

I have a mouse and printer, via a hub, plugged into one USB2 port, and a keyboard into the other. The third port, USB3, is the one I plug the USB sticks into (which work fine) - I also use it for a phono preamp and my scanner (both USB2 I think), which work fine.

None of those are data storage devices. You don't get it on those
because windows is monitoring the cache to let you know if it is safe to eject.

--
Science doesn't support Darwin. Scientists do.

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On Mon, 8/18/2025 12:24 PM, R.Wieser wrote:

Peter,

whenever I've finished with a USB stick I just remove it.
Have done for years and never had any problems.

Try that with an USB connected drive, and you will likely get a different result.

FYI, USB attached storage can be configured for speed (buffering reads and writes) or for quick removal (not buffering writes). Thumbdrives are by default configured for the latter.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

And the "fixed" or "removable" media designation, is via the RMB bit
in the hardware. A USB stick (Sony brand) can actually ship "fixed",
be buffered by default, with the potential to corrupt on random-pull.
A lot of other brands will be set to "removable media" item and
no buffered write.

USB sticks with LEDs (such as they are), can sometimes show activity.
The ancient MLC stick from OCZtechnology, the Rally2 8GB, has the best LED
on it, as the LED is a visible color, and it only flashes in a session-friendly way. None of the light that comes out of it is random vanity light. The
LED goes off when it is ejected (some years the light stayed on while
Microsoft fiddled, last status was that they had fixed the eject handling properly). I can tell from the LED on that one, when the OS is scanning
the pen, when writes are happening, and when any buffering if it were
to exist, is drained.

I always use Safely Remove, as a muscle memory habit. Doing so, also
highlights whether your application software has a TxF problem.
That's the atomic update interface on Windows or something,
supposedly deprecated but still used by backup software.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_NTFS

Paul

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Paul,

And the "fixed" or "removable" media designation, is via the RMB
bit in the hardware.

I forgot all about that. :-\

I just remembered that something being designated as "removable media" has a downside : You can't partition such a device (its always a single disk).
No idea why though, as an USB connected drive I also have has no problem
with being partitioned.

I always use Safely Remove, as a muscle memory habit. Doing so,
also highlights whether your application software has a TxF problem.

"TxF" ? Whats that ?

But yes, same here. I had it sometimes fail because I still had a file open on the thumbdrive ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser



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On Tue, 8/19/2025 3:55 AM, R.Wieser wrote:

Paul,

And the "fixed" or "removable" media designation, is via the RMB
bit in the hardware.

I forgot all about that. :-\

I just remembered that something being designated as "removable media" has a downside : You can't partition such a device (its always a single disk).
No idea why though, as an USB connected drive I also have has no problem with being partitioned.

I always use Safely Remove, as a muscle memory habit. Doing so,
also highlights whether your application software has a TxF problem.

"TxF" ? Whats that ?

But yes, same here. I had it sometimes fail because I still had a file open on the thumbdrive ...

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

We used to have some limitation of only one partition would
mount on a USB stick, then more recently, we were promised we
could make more partitions, but then there still seemed to be
some foot-dragging on how many of them would mount. That is likely
to be a Removable Device limitation, whereas a Fixed Device could
have multiple partitions.

I don't manually partition USB sticks much any more.
If I buy any sticks, it's usually for usage with Rufus
and making installers. My computer store doesn't stock "good"
sticks any more. Shopping for USB sticks now, is about as
exciting as picking through the USB stick stock at the
Walmart ("Cruiser Glide").

Paul

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On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 16:44:42 +0100, Peter Johnson
<peter@parksidewood.nospam> wrote:

Can't answer your question but whenever I've finished with a USB stick
I just remove it. Have done for years and never had any problems.

It's safe to do that if you have no open files on it.

I don't normally open files on flash drives -- I copy them to my fixed
disk first. That's a precautian against forgetting to do the "safe to
remove" routine.



--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

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Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

Alan K. wrote:

J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card: >>>
1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" -
which _is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm
_not_ getting a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for
lights to stop flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I never eject from explorer. I use the 'safe to remove' icon in the systray. It it's not
there then look at the ^ arrow for see hidden items. It can be made 'not hidden' if you
want. That's the icon I ALWAYS use and have had zero issue.

I wondered if someone would come up with that one! I don't have the "^"
- I have the tray set to always show all icons. (My tray currently has
18 - two rows of 9 - icons in it. [I have a double-height taskbar.])

I have seen where loading a volume whose properties are such that the
volume should be ejected before unloading, but the tray icon missing.
You can separately run:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

to get the Safely Remove Hardware wizard. I add a shortcut to that in
my Start menu tiles. Besides eject, I find some other info in the
wizard can come in handy, but it doesn't have much info.

If you want something besides Microsoft's wizard for both more info on
USB devices, and managing them, like right-click on one to eject, you
can use Nirsoft's USBdeview tool to look at, and manage USB devices:

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

If Eject is missing, that USB device does not require ejecting
(unloading) the volume before disconnect. For example, in Device
Management (devmgmt.msc) under Drives, right-click on a USB device,
Properties, Policies. If just write caching options are shown, no need
to eject (dismount) before disconnect. If you see the Quick Removal and
Better Performance options, no eject is needed if Quick Removal is
selected since that does not have writes cached.

Just because it is USB attached does not mandate an eject is required
before disconnect. Depends on the properties of the device (recorded in
the Enum registry keys for USB devices sent by the device to the OS
during initial handshaking), or possibly the device properties were
changed to Quick Removal.

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"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

I have seen where loading a volume whose properties are such that the
volume should be ejected before unloading, but the tray icon missing.
You can separately run:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Sounds useful; how does it know which device you want to eject, or does
it eject all currently-connected devices?>

Whether using File Explorer or the Safely Remove Wizard, you choose
which volume to unload (eject). With File Explorer, you use the context
menu on the USB drive you select to then eject (unload) it. With the
Safely Remove Wizard, you select which device to unload/eject, and then
click on the Stop button (it has instructions right at the top of its
window). Neither one will know what you might do in the future. You
select, and then you eject.

Just because it is USB attached does not mandate an eject is required
before disconnect. Depends on the properties of the device (recorded in
the Enum registry keys for USB devices sent by the device to the OS
during initial handshaking), or possibly the device properties were
changed to Quick Removal.

For the two USB sticks in question, they always used to cause the tray
icon to appear, and the "safe to" box to appear after using the tray
icon to say I wanted to eject; then they didn't.

"sticks" implies you are using USB-attached flash drives, not SSDs.
Flash drives are a storage medium while SSDs are storage devices. Not
all SSDs use flash memory. Flash drives are usually connected via USB
ports. SSDs are usually connected via SATA ports.

Flash drives don't need to be ejected. They don't have spinning
platters that have to be spun up to ensure they are ready to write any
data in a device-based cache, or in an OS cache. When initially
inserted, and during handshaking to the OS to recognize the device, presentation data is sent from the flash drive to the OS to get recorded
in the registry as to the type of storage media. By default, flash
drives should get set to "Quick removal" which means write caching is
disabled. SSD drives should, by default, have their policy set to
"Enable write caching on the device", so those should be ejected
(unmounted) before disconnect. Hard disks have to spin up, if not
already spinning, to empty any cached data onto its platters before
unmounting the drive.

If the policy on a storage device does NOT have caching enabled, you do
not need to unmount (eject) it before disconnecting it. Caching was
disabled, so there are no pending data writes. However, if there is
some process still writing to the device, and it gets disconnected, the remainder of the data writes are not performed. If you (some process)
is not still writing to the flash drive, you only need to wait until the
flash drive is quiescent, and that's likely to be a lot longer than it
takes for you to reach the USB flash drive.

I haven't consciously switched them to fast disconnect - I wouldn't
know how to.

Mentioned in my prior reply; see my comment on Device Management
(devmgmt.msc). For the USB-attached drives, they should be set to
"Quick removal" to avoid file system corruption. For SATA-attached
drives, well, SATA ports are usually internal, you'd be shutting down
the OS, and powering off the computer before you started yanking those
drives from the SATA ports, so those probably have caching enabled.

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On 2025-08-18 15:41, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card:

1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I read, somewhere, that M$ decided it is not any longer needed to do the "safely remove" thing anymore, because people forget it anyway.

This means that they make sure write data is not cached (for long).

It should be enough to watch the activity LED on the stick, and remove
it when the light stops blinking (yeah, and what happens when there is
no light, or it is permanently "on"?).


I don't trust this new feature.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

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J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card:

1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I still have my "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon in my
tray, but for some reason it quit notifying me when a thumb drive or my external drive are safe to remove.

--
John C. I filter crossposts, various trolls & dizum.com. Doing this
makes this newsgroup easier to read & more on-topic. Take back the tech companies from India & industry from China.


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On Wed, 8/20/2025 8:39 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-08-18 15:41, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card: >>
1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I read, somewhere, that M$ decided it is not any longer needed to do the "safely remove" thing anymore, because people forget it anyway.

This means that they make sure write data is not cached (for long).

It should be enough to watch the activity LED on the stick, and remove it when the light stops blinking

(yeah, and what happens when there is no light, or it is permanently "on"?).

I don't trust this new feature.

It would depend on the users knowledge of the situation, how safe this is :-)

what could possibly go wrong.

Paul

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On Wed, 8/20/2025 9:16 AM, John C. wrote:

J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Normally, when I plug in a memory stick, or external hard drive or SD card: >>
1. Something appears in the notification (tray) area; and
2. when I've told the PC to let me remove it, I get a "safe to" popup.

However, in (I think) the last few days:

1. I am _not_ getting the tray indication; and
2. when I tell the computer I'm finished with it (I do "eject" - which
_is_ there - on the drive letter, from File Explorer), I'm _not_ getting
a "safe to remove" popup. (I just wait a bit, and for lights to stop
flashing on the one that _has_ a light).

I'm not _aware_ of having changed anything.

Any idea what's changed/happened/whatever? (And what I need to do to
bring back both?)

I still have my "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon in my
tray, but for some reason it quit notifying me when a thumb drive or my external drive are safe to remove.

Check your Notification settings. The confirmation is a little blip of
a thing that pops up from the TaskBar, and that smells Notification-like.

Paul

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Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Sounds useful; how does it know which device you want to eject, or does
it eject all currently-connected devices?>

I misunderstood. I thought you were giving the above as a command line;

I did show the command line, but I didn't bother including the path to rundll32.exe, because it is one of the paths listed in the system PATH environment variable.

echo %path%

C:\Windows\System32 is probably the first path listed in that envvar.
You should not have to add the path before rundll32.exe nor should you
have to open a command shell to then change to that folder.

I just tried it, and got "This file does not have an app associated
with it for performing this action. Please install an app or, if one
is already installed, create an association in the Default Apps
Settings page.\OK">

You don't need any filetype or app associations, and cannot use any,
anyway. Associations are used to find something, not when you already
found it. You are directly specifying the .exe program to run, and you
are telling it which DLLs to call the functions. The is no registry
lookup needed to find those files.

Where is your rundll32.exe file?
Where is your shell32.dll file?
Where is your hotplug.dll file?

All of those should be in C:\Windows\System32 which is also a path
listed in the PATH envvar. I doubt rundll32.exe or shell32.dll are
missing as they are highly important. Do you have a hotplug.dll file?

Maybe you missing a space, comma, or underscore character in the
arguments list to rundll32.exe.

https://www.processlibrary.com/en/directory/files/hotplug/21724/ https://windows10dll.nirsoft.net/hotplug_dll.html

Another way to load the wizard is to run:

control.exe hotplug.dll

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"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

I just fetched one of my pen drives, and plugged it in: the additional explorer window popped up, showing the root of E:. (AVG also popped up;
I declined its offer to scan the new drive.) I tried control.exe
hotplug.dll again, and sure enough, it now shows "Generic Flash Disk USB Device"; I click the Stop button, and get a further window, telling me Windows will attempt to stop ..., listing Generic as above and "Volume - (E:)", which makes sense. I click OK, and get Problem Ejecting ... The 'Generic Flash Disk USB Device' device is not removable and cannot be
ejected or unplugged. (OK) Guessing that it is the extra Explorer window
that is the reason (it often has been in the past), I close that, and
try Stop again: same "Problem" message! I wasn't expecting that! I close
the wizard, and try ejecting E: from another explorer window I have
open: after a brief pause (1-2 seconds), E: disappears from that
explorer view, at which point I would normally unplug. Just out of
curiosity, I try control.exe hotplug.dll again: to my slight surprise,
it still shows it as present, and trying Stop still gives the same
Problem. Looking back at my Explorer window, E: has not magically
reappeared.

While the USB flash drive is plugged in (and a drive letter assigned to
it), did you look in Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) under Disk Drives to
look at the properties of that USB-attached flash drive to see if it is configured for Quick Removal? You don't need to eject for a device
configured for quick removal (i.e., caching is disabled).

However, if some process is doing repeated and long write events to the
device, you have to wait for that to complete, or hope that yanking away
its destination storage device has it gracefully terminate its writes.
If the process assigns a handle to the file (to write to it), the eject
will pause until the process releases the handle afterwhich the OS
assumes it is okay to unmount the volume. However, if the process opens
a file handle, and then closes the file handle despite it will later
again write to the device, the OS won't know there are further future
writes. The handle got closed, so time to eject.

I unplug anyway (got the usual unplug sound), and replug. Got the sound,
AVG popup, and E: has reappeared in my Explorer window. (This time, an
extra Explorer window has _not_ appeared - maybe because the Explorer
window had focus, I don't know.)

Same series of events occur when you disable AVG's auto-scan of
removable media? To me, looks like AVG is interferring with Explorer's handling of newly attached USB media.

--- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
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On 25/08/20 11:35 AM, Paul wrote:

I still have my "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon in my
tray, but for some reason it quit notifying me when a thumb drive or my external drive are safe to remove.

Thanks for replying, Paul, but that wasn't it.

--
John C. I filter crossposts, various trolls & dizum.com. Doing this
makes this newsgroup easier to read & more on-topic. Take back the tech companies from India & industry from China.


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Keywords: VanguardLH,VLH

"J. P. Gilliver" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

Same series of events occur when you disable AVG's auto-scan of
removable media? To me, looks like AVG is interferring with Explorer's
handling of newly attached USB media.

But why should that have _changed_? As far as I can remember, it has
_always_ popped up the offer to scan when I insert a pen drive (or SD
card). I am fairly certain that it did this _before_ the tray icon and
"safe to remove" popup stopped appearing.
* The tray icon that finally reappeared when - I think - I plugged and
then unplugged the pen drive yesterday is still there! Still no tooltip
when hovered over, unlike other tray icons; its background rectangle
still changes colour when it is hovered over. I presume it'll disappear
next Windows restart! (Don't know when that will be.)

Alas, if you are keeping the AV updated, changes happen to the software.
I used Avira at one time until it has a nasty behavior of re-polling
removable media every 1 minute, but only after the removable media was accessed. My floppy drive was silent until I accessed it, and
thereafter Avira kept re-polling the floppy drive at 1-minute intervals
which had it make the grinding noise along with unnecessary wear. They
could not reproduce the problem, but I found other users noting the same unwanted behavior. I quit using Avira. A couple years later I trialed
it again, it was at a much later major version, and the problem or
re-polling removable media after it had been accessed was gone.

Updates to AVs isn't just for sig database updates. Algorithms
(heuristics) also change as well as behavior. When users report that
something "suddenly changed" without them aware they did anything to
make a change, quite often the change gets traced to software updates.
And that includes updates to the OS. Unless you have severely locked
down your computer to disallow any and all updates, and force restoring
to an image to force the state of your drives to remain the same, your
software and OS are changing. What you had before when the wizard used
to work to popup is not what you have now.

It is very easy to temporarily disable an AV although for complete
disable might require restarting the OS to ensure any transparent proxy
and services or drivers for the AV are also disabled or quiescent. I
didn't say to permanently disable the AV. Just disable it to test if
the symptom goes away.

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