Safely Remove Broadcom, even though it's permanent

cormie

Hi,
Just set up a laptop for a friend, there is a "safely remove broadcom..." icon in the taskbar all the time even though I don't want to remove it and never will, it's a piece of hardware that will never be removed. Does anyone know if there's any way to get rid of it (not hiding inactive icons) but still have the icon come up if there IS actually a removable device plugged in?

Any feedback appreciated

Epic Tissue

Right click start button -> Properties -> Taskbar -> Option at the bottom to customize system trey/notification area then you can hide/show/hide when inactive any program specifically.

mocata

Its probably a USB wireless or bluetooth chip. Possibly internal.

cormie

Thanks epic tissue, but I'm talking about it not coming up altogether, that will just hide it, I don't want it to be seen as a removable thing at all

Alun

Can't do it I'm afraid, you're stuck with it.

cormie

I did see a post on another forum with same problem, but with another file, the solution seemed very complicated about adding a registry thing that stops it appearing in the startup folder. I tried and it didn't work and I didn't want to mess too much with the reg. Then another forum of the same laptop manufacturer, some guy had the same problem and did something in the bios which fixed it, I tried the same but no luck either ah well, it's only a little icon anyway, just me being OCD :pac:

I don't think XP gives you an easy way to remove the icon. But even if you do manage to remove it, it'll make things difficult if you ever need to unplug a USB flash drive or other device that needs to be stopped. Probably best to leave it there.

cormie

yeah, definitely don't want to get rid of the icon itself, just the broadcom making itself appear there. It's funny because if the WIFI switch is off when the computer boots up, the icon isn't there, if the wifi is on and you switch it off when the pc is booted, it says "blah blah can now be safely removed"

Capt'n Midnight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Manager

displaying non-present devices, b

set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
devmgmt.msc

type or copy the lines in bold to command prompt
then click view and show hidden devices, you can then remove some greyed out devices, maybe the broadcom will go too

and/or

update the driver and choose microsoft loopback adaptor, you will be able to remove it later

backup with system restore before doing any of this of course

cormie

Thanks for the replies

Captn, where can I do the command prompt from? The command there looks like it's going to display non present devices, but I want it to not display a present device, wonder would it work? Not sure how to do the command prompt thing so I'll give it a shot if I can get it going