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Why does File Explorer’s EJECT command differentiate between thumb drives and other types of drives?
When I attach a thumb drive to my computer and right click on the item in File Explorer the EJECT command is always listed. However, when I attach an external drive (HDD or SSD) and do the same thing (right click on the item in File Explorer) the EJECT command is not listed.
How come?
Hi Henry,
It’s all about the Windows hardware defaults as seen via Computer Management. External drives have several more options available that can be selected for ‘special purposes’ 
Left side of screenshot = internal M2 drive 1TB
Right side = external ‘thumb’ drive 32GB
I think these are the Windows (11) defaults.
Satrow,
Interestingly enough I can’t get my machine to give me the Polices
tab on either an External Drive (shown below) or the Internal NVMe Samsung 980 Pro!
This is a Kingston NVMe drive in an Orico USB 3.2 SSD Enclosure rated at 20Gbps.
Ruunning Win 11 23H2 Pro Build: 22631.3447
UPDATE: I also can not get the Policies tab on my “canary” machine running same version of Windows!
Satrow,
Although I always run with Admin privileges it did require running as Admin to get the Policies tab to show up. Using the Run Box:
cmd /c "C:\Windows\System32\Diskmgmt.msc"
Then right clicking on the popup line and selecting run as administrator, or as I did create a scheduled task set to run with highest privileges and then a shortcut to run the task.
You can use my PowerShell script CreateNoUACTaskShortcut program to simplify this task.
The script is available on my OneDrive Shared Folder.
Actually, it depends on whether Windows see a particular USB device as Removal or Basic/Fixed.
Removable = Eject option
Basic/fixed = No Eject option
Whether it’s one or the other is determined by a bit that’s set in the actual USB device itself when it was made and not its property settings in Windows!
For example, I have two different Kingston USB thumb drives, a 64GB and a 256GB, and Windows sees the 64GB one as Removable, with an Eject option, while the 256GB one is Basic/fixed, with no Eject option, even thought the properties for both are set exactly the same (Quick removal with no write-caching.)
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