I bought U3; I notice that many of the portable apps here are not U3 compliant. The U3 launcher seems to me a good idea (especially if I am to pass these around to folks who have difficulty with Windows explorer). On the other hand, not clear it's R0eady For Prime Time. Would I do better to place additional orders for Plain Old flash drives and save the $10?
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The only real advantage to U3 is its autorun capability--the Launchpad comes up automatically when you put the drive in. To me, it's just as easy to throw a menu app like PStart right in the root of the drive. This way you don't have to do too much digging in Windows Explorer to find it.
If I were you, I'd save the $10 and go for the standard drive.
-
Lauren She eats everything! It's like having a goat. A giant, two-Godzillaton goat.
maggie Hey, I resent that remark! I only weigh ONE Godzillaton!
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I think U3 is just some bullshit, we dont need it, just put in Pstart, and make a autorun.ini, it worked for me
Yes, If you enjoy risking your data,
forget about U3.
I've heard many horror stories from conventional flashdrive users of improperly disconnecting their sticks and corrupting valuable data.
U3 launchpad manages applications launch, termination, cleanup and device disconnection events.
Open applications management becomes a no-brainer.
But if you love to gamble with valuable data and destroying flashdrive partitions inadvertently,
just keep your fingers crossed, click your heels three times and repeat, "There's no place like data recovery labs..."
:rolleyes:
There's actually no difference at all in terms of data corruption between a plain flash drive and a U3 flash drive. If you pull a drive without safely ejecting it (it's ONLY two clicks whether standard or U3) you WILL lose your data. Let me say this again for everyone...
YOU SHOULD NEVER REMOVE A DRIVE WITHOUT SAFELY EJECTING IT
It doesn't matter whether you're using regular portable apps, U3 or Ceedo, they'll all wind up corrupted the exact same way. When you pull a drive, any files that were in the middle of writing will be corrupted. If these are files critical to an app, the app will be corrupted. Firefox Portable and Firefox for U3 stand an equal chance of being rendered broken by a physical eject (yanking the drive without safe ejecting). If these files that get corrupted are critical to the drive... BOOM... your drive is dead, until you reformat it. This applies to every kind of portable application, every kind of data and every kind of drive.
It's actually worse in Windows 2000. There's like a 25% chance of corruption when you do an unsafe eject.
The only way to make a drive less likely to be corrupted is to reformat it with NTFS. NTFS can handle disconnects better than FAT or FAT32. The only problem is that your drive will then only work with Windows 2000 and XP. It won't work with Windows 95/98/Me. It won't work with Mac OS. It won't work with Linux/UNIX. That's why drive manufacturers don't format as NTFS by default.
So, again, stormal (and everyone else), if you use U3, PLEASE take the time to make the two clicks to eject safely... and NEVER just pull the drive out. It will save you the headache of losing your data. And me the headache of attempting to help you recover a broken Firefox, Thunderbird or OpenOffice.org for U3 install. And please don't tell other people they can yank any USB device out without safely ejecting it and have their data be safe. It's just not true.
Safely Eject U3
1. If hidden, click the arrow near the system tray to show the U3 systray icon.
2. Click the U3 icon.
3. Click the eject button.
Safely eject a standard USB flash drive or portable hard drive
1. If hidden, click the arrow near the system tray to show the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon.
2. Left-click the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon (it's a green arrow pointing to the left).
3. Click "Safely Remove USB Mass Storage Device - Drive(X:)" (obviously, pick the correct drive letter if you have more than one plugged in)
That's all there is to safe ejecting. 2 or 3 clicks for ANY device, U3 or not... and your data is protected from corruption.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Regardless, U3 makes it a no-brainer.
When I'm in a hurry at a remote site and the customer or a co-worker is overtly distracting me,
I'll take U3 application management hands-down.
FYI - I intend to create an application management utility that will manage any and all flashdrive resident processes and will terminate them en masse via one click, regardless of how they are launched.
It will also support non-U3 flashdrives.
I tend to take exception as I constantly observe casual users bashing U3 and they do not truly understand just what it does.
It may be merely a convenience item, but I, for one, love convenience and have much anticipated its availability.
I tend to take exception as I constantly observe casual users bashing U3 and they do not truly understand just what it does.You mean like crashing the system when one has packet writing software installed?
The concept is OK but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
Clair
has had it's share of growing pains.
Remember Windows 95?
:rolleyes:
BTW - Have you left a CODE tag unclosed in your above post?
This page's formatting went silly just after you responded...
I only ask because the tray icon for it doesn't always appear on my laptop. My Windows has issues, and from past experience, I know that reinstalling will only be a temporar solution until I get some hardware repaired, so I'm trying to find out if there is any other safe path to take. So far, I've been closing all the programs, including pstart, and then waiting until the indicator LED on my flash drive shuts off.
Alternatively, is there some other way to get to the safely eject dialogue?
for the U3 launchpad, lol.
Another feature that the U3 launchpad still lacks is hotkey support.
It would be convenient, would it not?
;d
Alternatively, is there some other way to get to the safely eject dialogue?FYI - Try typing this in the Run box... Open:
RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
And tick the box for - "Display Device Components"
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Try:
Right-click "Start" - choose "Properties" - "Taskbar" - "Customize" - Safely Remove Hardware and then "Hide when inactive"
or simply click the "Restore Defaults" button.
Sometimes when I shutdown all portable programs and click "safely remove flashdrive" but it says that Programs are still running but the flashing light is off. Though there is still some risk, if the light is off it is relitivly safe to remove the flash drive.
It hangs on to the drive because of thumbnails of pictures.
Do it twice then pull.
That's what I do.
----
R McCue
PortaBlog Home and My Website
And before anyone complains about the grammar, I'm so jetlagged that my
hands aren't even in the same time zone...
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
any associated media filetype preview thumbnails and not just thumbnails for picture filetypes.
shmedia.dll handles the preview thumbnails in Windows Explorer and previews the content via DirectShow. (Media File Property Extractor Shell Extension)
To disable preview thumbnails:
Go to start menu > Run and type: cmd
Next you type at the command prompt: regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll
Press Enter.
To re-enable type: regsvr32 shmedia.dll
---------------
Also try...
For supported removable devices, right click on the device in Device Manager, select device, Properties, Policies, will bring up window with options Optimize for Quick Removal, or Optimize for Performance.
Click on the link, Optimize for Quick Removal*, and click OK.
*This setting disables write caching on the disk and in Windows, so you can disconnect this device without using the Safe Removal icon.
I didn't mean I can't *find* the safely eject tray icon. I mean it isn't there. I click the expand arrow, it's still not there.
Right-click "Start" - choose "Properties" - "Taskbar" - "Customize" - Safely Remove Hardware and then "Hide when inactive"
or simply click the "Restore Defaults" button.
*You could also select, "Always show", and see if that gives you your desired behavior.
You will never see the icon if "Always hide" is the selected value.
----------------
Try typing this in the Run box:
RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
A window should open.
If it says something like "Show Unplug icon on the taskbar"
at the bottom without a check next to it, try checking it and see if that helps.
----------------
For supported removable devices, right click on the device in Device Manager, select device, Properties, Policies, will bring up window with options Optimize for Quick Removal, or Optimize for Performance.
Click on the link, Optimize for Performance*, click OK, and the icon will reappear and can be used.
*This setting enables write caching in Windows to improve disk performance. To disconnect this device from the computer, click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the taskbar notification area.
---------------
And lastly...
If you right-click a flashdrive in Windows Explorer or My Computer you should observe an "eject" selection in the drop-down context menu if Windows has detected the drive as removable.
The drive may also be ejected by using this selection.
In the root of my flash drive I have a shortcut called Safely Remove Flash Drive. It points to
%windir%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
This opens the remove dialog that's accessable via a series of links.
LOL... i just added the same thing to my PStart menu. I have to launch it, close Pstart and then eject... but it works.
Seriously, I've been worried about the consequences of this issue ever since I found portableapps.com.
In the root of my flash drive I have a shortcut called Safely Remove Flash Drive. It points to
%windir%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
This opens the remove dialog that's accessable via a series of links.
Go a step further-- add it to PStart and tell it to launch when closed.
I hadn't played with PStart enough yet to even know that was possible, but that puts this right back to a 2-click solution, just like if the tray icon was working.
It serves also as a nice reminder. There is another thread here with a .vbs solution... I havent tried it (living up to my screen name-- I didn't feel like reading it all), but I think I'm happy with this option.
PStart is pretty neat for being so small.
And U3 does not run on PC with restricted access such as GW university PCs. On the other hand, you can run a portable app from any PC.
So, I am selling my verbatim 1GB USB drive on ebay.
Charles
And not simply another droll U3 bashing party.
Thanks for the contributions regarding experienced issues and excellent tips and workarounds everyone.
------------------
Yes, the non-NTFS U3 flashdrive's launchpad provides the distinct disadvantage of copying executables to the user's temp directory and executing them there, instead of from the non-NTFS secured removable disk itself.
They will then inherit the current user's NTFS security permissions.
Some might call this a security "feature", and then again, some like yourself may curse it.
Employing Pstart or Pstart for U3 are good simple workarounds for avoiding this behavior.
So, I am selling my verbatim 1GB USB drive on ebay.Why not just simply uninstall U3 then?
For the most part, I've seen quite reasonable concerns brought up regarding U3 in this forum. There are security concerns (your data is not encrypted and the U3 framework has been hacked). There are compatibility concerns (the issue with CDRW software in particular nailed me badly and cost me 1/2 a day of development time). There are platform concerns (it is closed-source / proprietary and does lock you to specific vendors). In short, there are issues with U3. Of course, U3 is working on some of these (though I can't share details).
There are several issues with straight portable apps as well. There are consistency concerns (many apps have different structures and work in different ways). There are usability concerns (U3's add/remove programs is easier to understand for the lay-person than copying files around). There are security concerns (which can be alleviated with TrueCrypt or the commercial encryption tools that come with most drives or can be purchased). Of course, my self and others are actively working on solutions to these issues.
There is no such thing as a perfect solution. For some people, U3 is the best fit. For other people, portable apps are the best fit. Still others use a combination of the two. There's no reason to "bash" either solution. But intelligently discussing the pros and cons and the defects with each is constructive and can only result in improvements and better choices by end-users.
We are making things better with every release, every bug report and every user suggestion. That's one of the benefits of a community like this... and of open source development.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I bought a Sandisk U3 drive a few months ago and it gave me nothing but fits (of anger). I tried to create my own partition structure on it (ie: more than one partition) and no matter what I did, it wouldn't let me. I could do it under Linux, but when I stuck the drive in under Windows it got all freaked out because it wasn't what the hidden driver wanted the device to look like. I ended up sending it back.
If you want a thumb drive that the manufacturer controls, buy a U3.
If you want a thumb drive that you have complete control over, don't buy U3.
Has been the best about this so far. They allow you to unistall & reinstall the U3 platform. I don't remember hearing any other company doing that.
Personally I will decide which drive to buy depending on storage size, quality, & price. If it happens to have U3, I will simply uninstall it.
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
The problem is, you can't uninstall it. It's not like it's a program on the drive that you can simply go in and delete. The device emulates a cdrom drive and autoruns a program that installs drivers on the host computer.
If I had understood how it worked before I bought it, I would have never gotten it.
http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/u3/launchpadremoval.exe
You're welcome.
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
Sandisk
http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1415
All others
http://www.u3.com/uninstall/
Removing the U3 Launchpad is irreversible.
If you have permanently removed the U3 Launchpad from your smart drive, there is no way to re-install it. Accessing the U3 Launchpad will require that you purchase another U3 smart drive, and re-load any third-party software programs on the drive.
And modified. On Sandisk, anyway. Read more on it here.
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
http://www.cse.msstate.edu/~rwm8/hackingU3/
I have that link in my last post. Why post it again?
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
the problem I've had with my u3 drive is the following.
It worked fine on mac os x and windows for a few days (of course I could not use the software part on os x but that's an other problem).
But one day I tried to add shortcuts to my Portableapps.com apps in the u3 launchpad as explained on http://www.everythingusb.com/u3.html.
Now I don't know if it's related to the u3 shortcuts tricks but since that day my usb key won't mount at all on any mac os x computers.
The main problem with u3 is that if you are confronted to a problem like this you can't format and reinstal the launchpad to fix the problem.
I'm now thinking about removing u3 definitly and go back to the good old Pstart only which never gave me any problem. But my question is why did I pay more for a usb key that wasn't (in the end) much better than my old one running PStart only.
I'm not meaning that u3 is bad. It's just that you end up being stuck when confronted to a problem with it.
But for people not trying to add anything non-u3 to it, it should just work fine.
bigl00z3
"Removing the U3 Launchpad is irreversible.
If you have permanently removed the U3 Launchpad from your smart drive, there is no way to re-install it. Accessing the U3 Launchpad will require that you purchase another U3 smart drive, and re-load any third-party software programs on the drive."
This is not true. At least for sandisk drives. I've removed and re installed Launchpad using the already mentioned removal tool and the installer avaliable from sandisk here: http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1411