Millions of people all over the planet continuously have this problem: they try to eject their USB drive so as to avoid data loss, but windows does not allow them. Which is very frustrating, because whatever reasons windows thinks it has for not allowing the removal should have lower priority than the user's explicitly stated direct wish to remove the damned thing!

Anyway, suggestions for solutions abound on the interwebz, but they are mostly misguided and ineffective. Here are some that I found with a quick search:

So, I am on computer A, trying to map a local drive to a shared folder of computer B, and Windows gives me this message: "The network folder specified is currently mapped using a different user name and password".

Microsoft supposedly addresses this issue here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/938120 and concludes that it is so by design.

Bullshit. They are missing the point. The error message is wrong. The network folder specified is not currently mapped using a different user name and password. Instead, what is happening, is that another folder of the same computer B is already mapped on computer A using a different user name and password.

So, Microsoft has pushed this trojan horse to every single user of Windows on the planet. It displays a Windows 10 logo on the taskbar, and it is basically telling you that not only you will get Windows 10 as soon as it comes out, but you should right now begin acting as if you are looking forward to it. Because, you know, you are their biatch.

So, I am firing up a remote desktop (RDP) connection, and the little box appears saying that it is trying to connect:

And then the box just disappears, without an error message or any other hint as to what might have gone wrong.

The interwebz abound with reports of this happening, and people asking how to fix it, and various solutions being offered that range from the complex to the hopelessly complex.

Intel advertises NUC5CPYH - (Celeron N3050) as being compatible with Windows 7. It is not. All my attempts to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on it failed. The installation would start, and when it would reach the first interactive screen (language selection) the keyboard and mouse would be dead, (not even NumLock would work on the keyboard,) even though both keyboard and mouse work fine on the BIOS screens of the NUC. On other occasions I managed to overcome this problem, (I don remember how,) and the installation would proceed to 99%, only to fail in the end with some error about not being able to update my computer's boot configuration or something.

I once had a colleague who had a higher rank than me, and who was not only unconvinced by my rational and articulate arguments for doing a certain thing in a certain way, but he concluded the discussion by stating that --and I am not paraphrasing here, this is what he actually said-- the way he wanted it done was mentioned in a book, so unless I could find a book backing up my proposal, it was to be done his way.

I did not argue with him at that time, (how can you argue with that?), but I would now like to quickly jot down my thoughts on why saying such a thing is incredibly stupid: