Erase all traces of old connected USB Drives

Most such traces are usually left behind in the following registry keys:

System\controlset\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceContainersCurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClassesSoftware\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache

All these traces pile up, and even registry cleaners may miss them. These entries can let others view which USB drives had been connected to your PC. One such tool that lets you do so easily is USBDeview from Nirsoft. It is a small utility that lists all USB devices that are currently in use and those which have been previously used on your computer. A point may then come that from a privacy point of view, you may want to delete these traces.

USBOblivion for Windows PC

USBOblivion is a portable freeware that is designed to erase all traces of USB-connected drives and CD-ROMs from the Windows registry. The first time you run USBOblivion, make sure that the Do real clean box is unchecked. This will only scan your computer and list the entries. This is the test mode of operation.

Once you are sure that you want to clean the traces, remove or disconnect your USB Drives, check the Do real clean box and click on Clean. By default, the save backup .reg file check-box is selected. This is good, as before removing the traces from the registry, they get backed up in the form of a .reg file, which is saved in the user’s Documents folder. Should you feel the need, you can always restore the deleted keys using this backup.

USB Oblivion download

You can download USB Oblivion from here. It worked just fine on my Windows 10 64-bit. Remember to create a system restore point first, so that you can restore your computer, should you feel the need to. You may also want to check out GhostBuster. It lets you remove old, unused, ghosted, hidden device drivers in Windows.