Using the system tray icon of USBCrypt

You have probably noticed that after you've created your first Virtual Encrypted Disk, USBCrypt put a small icon on the system tray (also known officially as the "taskbar notification area") for it:

When you eject the removable host drive, the icon disappears, and when you plug the host drive back, the icon re-appears on the system tray again. If you plug in another removable drive with a different Virtual Encrypted Disk on it, USBCrypt will show a separate icon for that drive, too. As you can see, the system tray icons give you a quick visual cue about the drives encrypted with USBCrypt that are currently attached to the computer.

If you click (or right-click) on such an icon, a shortcut menu appears with commands that depend on the current state of the encrypted drive represented by that icon. If you have not started the Virtual Encrypted Disk off it yet, the menu contains a command to start it:

You can use this command to quickly start the Virtual Encrypted disk. It would have the same effect as if you would have run USBCrypt off the Start menu and then selected the host disk to start in the main list. The system tray icon gives a quicker access to that command.

Notice that when you start the Virtual Encrypted Disk, the system tray icon changes its color from red to green. That provides you with another useful visual cue, especially if you have several USBCrypt drives attached to the computer at the same time: by glancing over the system tray icons you can instantly see which encrypted disks are started and which are not.

If you click on the system tray icon for the Virtual Encrypted Disk that's already started, you would see a slightly different shortcut menu:

As you can see, this menu gives you a quick access to the command to stop the Virtual Encrypted Disk represented by that icon. Again, the net result is the same as if you would have run USBCrypt main application and chosen the host disk to stop from the list.

Note also that in each case the shortcut menu contains several other commands that you may find useful:

Run USBCrypt

This command has the same effect as choosing the USBCrypt command from the Windows Start menu.
Forget ... password(s)

This command appears on the menu only if you have previously used the Remember this password for this session command when starting a Virtual Encrypted Disk. You may want to use this command if you no longer want USBCrypt to remember such passwords.
Exit

You can use this command to remove the USBCrypt icons from the system tray menu. (Why would you want to do that is beyond our comprehension, considering how useful those icons are. But it's your computer, you are the boss!) Keep in mind, though, that after you choose the Exit command, USBCrypt will not automatically display its icons when you attach an encrypted drive to the computer, and, of course, there would be no quick access to the useful commands described above.

One situation when you do want to use the Exit command is when you want to eject a removable drive from a computer that does not have a copy of USBCrypt software installed on it. In such a case, the system tray icon is loaded directly from the removable drive itself. If you decide to unplug the drive, Windows won't let you do that, because it would still be using the USBCrypt files off that drive to display the icon. To be able to eject the drive, you would need to use the Exit command first. Let us reiterate that this is only necessary if the computer does not have USBCrypt software installed on it.

If you use the Exit command while there are Virtual Encrypted Disks still started, it will prompt you to stop the Virtual Encrypted Disks. You can reply No and that would keep the Virtual Encrypted Disks running while the USBCrypt icons would be hidden from the taskbar.

What if you have used the Exit command to remove the USBCrypt system tray icons, and now want them back? Well, it's easy to do: just run USBCrypt off the Start menu, or off the host removable drive, and the system tray icons will reappear and remain there even if you close the USBCrypt program without doing anything. Also, the icons will appear again automatically next time you restart the computer or log on to Windows. (Of course, remember that you need to have an encrypted drive attached to the computer for its icon to be shown.)

Run USBCrypt

Forget ... password(s)

Exit