Computer Application, Maintenance and Supplies
Showing posts with label Zip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zip. Show all posts

Thursday, March 04, 2010

CD Room won't be eject

Just bought a new (well, refurbished) Sony media-center PC, and while it's working fine for the most part, there's one annoying glitch: The Blu-ray drive's Eject button doesn't work.


Consequently, discs stay trapped in the drive unless I minimize Windows Media Center, open Computer, right-click the drive icon, and choose Eject. Talk about a hassle!

While I'm working to resolve this with Sony's tech support, I need a faster, easier solution. And I found one: a tiny freeware app called, simply enough, EjectCD.

After extracting the program from the Zip file, I pinned it to the Windows 7 taskbar. Vista users can do likewise by enabling the Quick Launch toolbar and dragging it there.

Now a single click of the EjectCD icon pops open the drive. Even better, because I know the ancient secrets of the Windows taskbar, I can just as easily use a keyboard shortcut.

See, every icon in the taskbar and Quick Launch toolbar is automatically assigned a numerical value: 1 for the icon closest to the Start button, 2 for the next one, and so on. Pressing the Windows key and that number launches that program.

So I pinned EjectCD in that first position. Now, a tap of Windows-1 runs the app and opens the drive.

I haven't been able to pin down the origin of this tool, which I found in an OverclockersClub forum. Thus, it's slightly use at your own risk, though as I said, it worked like a charm for me.