FWIW, you don't have to use the UI to safely unplug USB flash disks on 
XP.  You can still do it, but the cache is write through on XP by default 
for hot removable devices, not write back.  It's still mandatory (as in 
"otherwise you may lose data") if you change settings to use write-back 
cache.

I've heard that they got too many complaints from users regarding the 
Win-2000 behavior, hence the change.

--Terry

At 01:26 PM 7/25/2005 -0400, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
>In message <20050725171652.GA26608@kyyhky.embedtronics.fi>, Jukka Marin 
>writes:
> >On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 09:32:14AM -0700, Bill Studenmund wrote:
> >> Why not just unmount the stick before disconnecting it?
> >
> >No modern operating system should have the user do things like this unless
> >he/she has a specific reason for it.  The users don't even know what
> >mounting a disk means.
> >
>
>Of course, DOS/Windows has gone the other way -- you never needed to
>tell the OS anything when you removed a floppy drive, but you do need
>to "stop" a USB disk or PCMCIA device before removal.  I believe the
>same is true on MacOS.
>
>In other words, maybe people shouldn't have to do it, but on most
>modern systems they do; it's not a new concept except, perhaps, for the
>word "unmount".
>
>                 --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb