3 days ago Christy posted a new thread at the forum sharing some interesting apps. Out of the 6 applications, I was more interested in taking a look at Dev Eject which is used to eject locked USB drives. One of the most common problem that we face with a USB flash drive connected to the computer is unable to safely remove it because the device is currently in use and asking you to close any programs or window that might be using the device and then try again. There are times when you can be very sure that there are no visible files that are running from the USB flash drive but you still cannot eject it. Little did you know that there might be some other process such as Explorer.exe that is locking up the drive. Dev Eject is a small and simple application which you can use to list the files that are open from the drive and which process has them open.
Dev Eject doesn’t have all those fancy feature and eye-candy interface. It is able to detect when you have inserted a USB flash drive to your computer, ejecting, unplugging and replugging the drive. There is also a lock button where you can use it to see what files are being locked and used by the drive that causes you unable to safely eject the drive. The only risk in using this is there’s an option to Kill the process rather than releasing it. If you have an unsaved document, you will lose all the changes by killing the process.
One of the interesting feature is the ability to automatically “replug” the drive back by simply clicking a button when it has been ejected without you manually unplugging the drive and replugging it back. By default Dev Eject integrates into Windows when it is running and hides the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” icon from the system tray. This feature can be disabled from the Settings by unchecking “Tray integration”.
Dev Eject is free and runs on Windows XP/Vista/7 32-bit & 64-bit. Although Dev Eject comes in a setup installer, you can actually copy the program folder to another computer and use it without reinstallation.