Desktop Icon appears for optical drive and usb drives

[magicant]

I am a new user to windows 7 and have noticed that when I insert a cd/dvd or a usb thumb drive, an icon for it appears on the desktop and then dissapears once it is removed. I feel this is unnecessary as a window pops up allowing me to explore the drive. Is there a way to disable this feature?

Thank you.

 

[Brink]

Hello Magicant, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you right click on the desktop icon for the drive when it's displayed, are you able to click on Delete to remove it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[magicant]

Just tried but didn't work.

I insserted a USB thumb drive. When the icon appeared I deleted it. After removing the drive and reinserting it (in the same USB port) the icon reappears on the desktop again.

Is this normal behavior for Windows 7?

 

[Brink]

Could you post a screenshot of your desktop when the drive icon is displayed just to make sure that something else may be causing it.

 

[Sardonicus]

If you're referring to the Safely remove icon, yes it's normal.

 

[Brink]

If it's not the Safely Remove icon, then could you also post a screenshot of these registry locations below showing everything displayed in the right pane of them like below. I'll look to see if you may have CLSID entry there for this icon that you can remove to stop it.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu
 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel
 
 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu
 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel

 

[magicant]

See the screenshot below. I inserted a CD and a thumbdrive. An icon for each appears on the desktop and remains until I remove them. This happens for any usb drive or cd I insert. An icon for that specific item temporarily appears on the desktop.

 

[Brink]

Ah, ok. Go ahead and post what I posted for in my post above. I'll look to see if I may be able to spot the CLSID keys there that may be responsible for them.

 

[magicant]

Here is a screenshot of the registry entries.

Thanks.

 

[Brink]

Thank you.

Those two locations do not have the entries for them, but be sure to also post the registry screenshots from the HKEY_CURRENT_USER locations as well. They could be there as well.

 

[magicant]

Sorry I submited too fast and was trying to edit.

Here are the other entries.

 

[Brink]

Ah, ok. This may be where the problem is.

The {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} entry is for the Computer folder. Since it's set to display on your desktop with the 0 data value, this is may be why you would have them display on your desktop as well when plugged in.

Download and double click on the REG file attached below to merge it, then you may need to restart afterwards to apply. This will remove Computer from your desktop.

Afterwards, you can use this Computer shortcut on your desktop instead without getting the other drives.

Hope this helps.

 

[magicant]

Are you referring to the COMPUTER icon on my desktop?

If so, instead of using your registry file, I went to personalize/change desktop icons and unchecked COMPUTER (I had originally checked this to place the computer icon on my desktop). I checked that registry entry and it is now a 1 instead of a 0.

Unfortunately, this did not solve the problem. The computer icon is no longer on my desktop but an icon still shows up when inserting a usb drive.

 

[magicant]

So this is not standard behavior for Windows 7?

 

[Brink]

I must admit that I'm stumped as to why they are showing up like that.

If it has not always done this, then you could do a system restore using a restore point (if available) dated before this started to hopefully stop it.

 

[magicant]

I just built this computer so I've only had windows installed for a few days and it did it from the start.