yeah that was my comment on the blog was that the release works. So good then.
HAHA

@Queue: Just posted EjectUSB to the database. Thanks for a great tool!

I think I will be adding it to my PStart menu from now. It's really convenient to be able to terminate all proceseses running from my USB HDD at the end of the day with one single click, compared to my usual hunt-and-peck method.

Hello people, a first time poster but a long time lurker here. This is not intended to offend anyone, but I find it unfair that this 2-month old project being added to the database so quickly while so many good nominations (check the submission thread) not even being looked at.

Having said that, thanks for this great resource, nevertheless.

@Baas

Welcome to the Portable Freeware collection forums! I hope you have the thick skin required to stay here with us. Three things come to mind immediately to answer your post, and I'm sure if I get any of them wrong either Andrew, or one of the moderators will correct me.

1.) This is a one of a kind app, and nothing else does anything like it with the detail that it does it. A lot of apps that get posted are competitors of something else listed, and I'm sure the moderators like to see any buzz a submission draws within the community before adding it to the database.

2.) Queue is an excellent contributor to this site. Not just by applications/submissions, but feedback that he provides on posts is usually fair and concise. He adds a great deal to most of the discussions I have read him post in, and usually gives people that extra piece of info they may be looking for in their decision process on a forum topic. He also does this in a professional manor that doesn't step on peoples toes. I'm sure that weighed in while Andrew was following his forum threads.

3.) Moderators do get busy, and simply can't add everything when they get time to review the submissions. Especially when so many of the submissions come with so little detail. If you want an app posted, provide links to screen shots, home pages, download links, give a good description, and results from portability tests you have ran. The easier you make it for the moderators to research the submission, the more likely it will be added. I also think even with all that this probably goes back to number 1 and the whole community buzz aspect of an app.

I hope this answers your question.

And Queue, let me take time say thanks for all the hard work you have put into this. It shows, and I appreciate it.

_________________

I do realize I am not keeping up with all the submissions, updates and comments, but I can't think of any alternative for scaling up my effort. I have added quite a number of moderators, but I think they soon found out too that it takes a non-trivial amount of time to maintain TPFC, so they haven't been super active either.

These days, I keep all the unread forum messages stored under GreatNews, and whenever I have time, I pick a couple of items that interest me and work on them, in no particular order. This is mainly to keep this particular "hobby" interesting, otherwise it will begin to feel too much like actual work.

Thank you very much for adding EjectUSB to the database Mr. Lee; I'm really proud to have contributed something.

Now, it seems EjectUSB's eject function is failing on non-English versions of Windows, and I'd like to get this resolved. I need screenshots of the following windows, but in languages other than English:


EjectUSB doesn't actually rely on any search strings that are language dependent, so I'm a bit puzzled as to where the problem is occuring. Getting screenshots of the above two windows (double clicking the safely remove hardware icon in the system tray should get you to these dialogs) in languages other than English might give me a clue as to where the problem lies though.

Assuming the problem isn't obvious, I'll provide further instructions on getting information I'd need to resolve the issue.

Queue

Thanks for clarifying this guys.

I finally got a reproducible test situation setup where EjectUSB's ejection fails. I've been hammering away at the issue all afternoon. Assuming I find a reliable solution soon, I'm aiming for a version 1.1 release this evening. I'll be adding a flash demonstration of EjectUSB in action as well (thanks for the inspiration MiDoJo; Wink is really neat).

The changes will be as follows:
- Design flaw fix: TimeToWait is now a maximum per ''phase'' rather than per program; in rare cases EjectUSB could wait for multiple minutes on closing programs with the default TimeToWait value of 5 (seconds).
- Bug fix: Cleaning up dead tray icons was triggered by faulty criteria; in simple terms, dead tray icon cleanup was occuring when it didn't need to (wasting up to 1 second).
- Minor efficiency improvements related the the previous two changes.
- Art change: Slight change to the EjectUSB logo.
- Added functionality: EjectUSB can now interface with Unlocker to close open file handles; simply UniExtract the Unlocker installer and put Unlocker.exe and UnlockerDriver5.sys in the same folder as EjectUSB. Unlocker requires admin privileges and doesn't work on Win9x.
- Assuming I find a solution, improved ejection capability via EjectUSB's own internal ejection routine.

I'm gonna give myself 4 more hours to get things sorted, organized and uploaded, but things are looking good so a release tonight is very likely.

Queue

I proudly present, EjectUSB 1.1, the [flash] movie!
http://www.pocketappreview.com/wink/EjectUSB.htm

No, there's no download for EjectUSB 1.1 yet; gotta double check the documentation and do a quick compare with the old script to make sure everything's solid, but I seem to have beat the ejection fail issue (at least the test case I had set up).

I figure it'll be ready in about an hour and a half.

Queue

Ok, NOW version 1.1 is up:
http://www.pocketappreview.com/main/item/ejectusb
http://www.pocketappreview.com/main/media/software_zip/EjectUSB.zip

Queue

Edit: Whoops, fixed the download link (in response to MiDoJo's post below).

Queue,
1.1 works great (but the Download direct link in your above post does not work) I went through the other link and it worked, keep up the good work.

I know it's frustrating to see this app jump to the top of the submission list but (IMHO) it is an essential program for portable use and solves the MUI Cache Issue/conversation that Ameri-Cain, queue, myself and many others were having a few months ago. I appreciate your input in this forum as do other users, and I hope that you are not too sour about the fast track. Plus it's ubercool that Andrew is putting this program on his Pstart Asap (sheesh even I wasn't going to use it except for beta but then fell so in love with it I've put it on all my pstart instances).
(LOL I misread the intial post and thought that Amer-Cain was the poster about "unfair" doh!!!!!!!!!!!!) I editted the post because there is no on this forum
Peace,
MiDoJo

I tried 1.1 but 1.0 seems to eject my usbkey better than 1.1.

I use it in combination with USB_Disk_Eject.exe, then own eject routines don't really work... I use Vista dutch

I'm sorry I haven't responded m4rc0; I've been working as hard as I can trying to locate any possible issues a language difference could cause for EjectUSB.

As for ejection, I think my next step will be to implement loop-until-successful ejection, which is rather drastic, but I guess it'd make sense to at least be an option.

Queue

Ok, lots of nice improvements are done for EjectUSB 1.2, but I need a little beta-testing to be sure everything's alright before I finalize and release it. I mainly need a quick test on Vista to try out the new ejection function; a test on Win2000 wouldn't hurt either. I've had success personally on WinXP SP3 (and nothing's changed for Win98SE) but more testing couldn't hurt.

This is a quick and dirty test release so the ZIP ONLY contains an executable and the AU3 script; documentation and whatnot will be clumped with the full release (which could be pretty soon if I get some successful feedback).

So, here are the details:
- Massive efficiency improvements.
- Rewrote command line parsing; drive letter / folder no longer has to be specified first on the command line.
- Bug Fix: better handling of relative paths.
- Implemented data cache flushing (any pending writes are flushed to the removable media before ejection, requires admin rights, I'm working on a non-admin option; this is mainly important for external hard drives, not flash drives).
- Implemented API-based drive ejection; the EjectUSB logo appears in the system tray until ejection succeeds (and ejection can be aborted if it's not working by clicking the icon and choosing Exit).
- Changed RemoveDrive.exe support to loop until success (it can be aborted by closing its console window).
- Changed DevEject.exe support to hide its window.

The API-based ejection took me hours of effort, so I'm really hoping it works correctly on Vista and Win2000 (I did have really good notes to work off of though so I have high hopes). The good news is it tries drive ejection in a loop until it succeeds, which should improve the chance of success drastically. Also, since it uses API calls you don't get ejection window popups. =D

http://localhostr.com/files/d553bf/EjectUSB_r15.zip

The main thing when testing is you need to NOT have any Ejection Helper Utilities in the folder with EjectUSB to ensure a proper test of EjectUSB's new internal ejection function.

Queue