[German]Microsoft has made changes to the policies for USB media that affect Windows 10 version 1809 and later. The policies for USB media are now set to 'Quick Remove' by default.
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Microsoft is changing some policies of the Windows 10 Version 1809. A few days ago I reported in the blog post KB4490481 fixes/adds group policies in Windows 10 V1809 about such a change in the 'Soft disconnect from network' area – this policy was introduced by the aforementioned update for Windows 10 V1809.
Removal policy for USB media
Windows supports policies for USB media (USB hard drives, USB sticks, etc.) removal to influence performance or data safety. A USB device can be optimized for speed (better performance) or fast removal by policy.
With the previous optimization for better performance, Windows stores the data in a cache before writing, so the throughput is usually higher. However, this has the disadvantage that unsaved data could be lost in the cache when USB media is removed.
When ejecting a USB device using the Windows function, the cache had to be written to the USB device before the operating system could unload the device and display the message that the USB device may be removed.
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Changes from Windows 10 V1809
Within the blog post Windows 10, version 1809 and later: Change in default removal policy for external storage media Microsoft announced on April 4, 2019 a change in USB removal policy from Windows 10 version 1809 an later.
Windows defines two main policies, Quick removal and Better performance, that control how the system interacts with external storage devices such as USB thumb drives or Thunderbolt-enabled external drives. Beginning in Windows 10 version 1809, the default policy is Quick removal.
In earlier versions of Windows the default policy was Better performance.
So in a nutshell: While a USB medium was previously optimized for higher performance, Windows 10 V1809 and higher has the preference for 'Quick Remove'. Within the blog post linked above, Microsoft give detailled advices how to check and change this settings.
I did a quick search, but I didn't notice a group policy that can be used by an administrator to control this. On Windows 7, by the way, the default policy is 'Quick Remove'. And even with an existing Windows 10 system nothing will be changed, if the user has set an individual policy. So I don't know under which constellations Microsoft has set the option 'Better performance' as default for Windows 10.
