Remove U3 Launchpad from your flash thumbdrive

Thu, Dec 4, 2008

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I have a U3 Launchpad-enabled thumbdrive that I absolutely detest because it’s incredibly annoying to use. It takes longer than usual to run, and the menus take forever to load. What’s U3 anyway? Here’s what it officially is:

U3 platform is a technology created for Microsoft Windows operating systems that allows applications to be executed directly from a specially formatted USB flash drive according to U3 specifications, which also U3 smart drives, so that data and programs can be shared on multiple PCs.

And I’m 110% sure I don’t need that functionality.

I don’t know why I didn’t think about it earlier, but today I decided to see how I can remove the U3 program, and surprise surprise, the uninstall utility is actually included. Just go to the U3 utility menu, and go to settings. There, you should find an Uninstall option. Click on that, and you should be good to go!

If you can’t find it, you can download the U3 uninstall utility here from the official website.

Caveat: This is supposedly an irreversible change, so you can’t reinstall U3 after you’ve removed it. Also, before you do the U3 uninstall, DO BACKUP YOUR DATA!

This post was written by:

Alvin - Alvin is a Singaporean who's interested in marketing, techy stuff and likes to just figure out how the two can work with each other. On top of his blog, you can also follow him on Twitter.

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5 Comments For This Post

Tim Says:
December 7th, 2008 at 7:31 pm

Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.

Sam Says:
December 29th, 2008 at 1:18 am

thanks!!!

Ha Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 7:08 am

Thanks for this useful information.

History of Golf Says:
August 21st, 2009 at 4:07 pm

A thumbdrive is a portable storage unit designed to plug directly into a computer’s USB port. A flash card is a memory card for a device such as a camera or MP3 player. To connect a flash card to a computer requires a card reader or a connection to its host device.

History of Golf Says:
August 21st, 2009 at 4:09 pm

One is bigger than the other (physically). Flash cards are used in digital camera’s and other small devices, USB thumbdrives or USB keys are used with any standard USB port on any compatible computer.

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