Zentimo is intended to manage the USB devices connected to your computer. It is meant to substitute Windows built-in tool, as Zentimo has many more features, like the possibility to access and modify a device´s properties as well as perform speed tests. Fortunately, the program is not difficult to use at all.
The program lets you stop any connected USB device. Perhaps you are arguing that you can do the same with the default tool and it is true. However, Zentimo is much better at forcing devices to stop when given processes are preventing this action. Moreover, if you do not wish to do the “hard way”, you can always have the program display the list of processes to find where the problem is. Another advantage of Zentimo is that it actually allows disabling some kinds of external devices (hot-plug devices), which you would normally need to do via the Device Manager. Moreover, if you have stopped a device but it is still plugged, you can start it again without the need for the usual operation of disconnecting and reconnecting it.
The tool is quite advisable in terms of automating your work. In this respect, Zentimo lets you define what your system should do on an event such as connection and removal. This way, you can set a given application to run or create a backup of the contents of the USB device before stopping it.
Other worth-mentioning features are that the program can prevent autorun viruses to start from your portable drive as well as manage encrypted partitions. Moreover, it lets you manage drive letter and conduct speed test on your devices.
In a nutshell, Zentimo is certainly one of the best tools of its kind. The product is sold in three licenses: personal, commercial and unlimited site (supporting all the computers in an enterprise). However, you should know that there are similar programs available at no cost, although they may not have so many features.
v2.2.1.1278 [Dec 30, 2019]
- This version has two new interesting features: device disabling (permanent safe removal) and ability to return devices back without reboot of other devices. Besides there are bug fix and some minor improvements.
- Device disabling: With this feature you can disable or deactivate a device. This is the same as safe removal but the device stays disabled after the OS restart and even if you reconnect it or its USB hub. This option is very convenient if you wish to stay device connected physically to the computer but don’t need it to be active avoiding it to consume power (works if the option “Power off the device after device stopping” enabled) and being accessed by malicious software.
- Return device back without restart of other devices: When you return devices back the previous versions actually reboot the USB hub where this device is connected to. When you have other devices connected to this hub they were reboot as well. It might be not convenient especially if you have wifi or LTE modem among the neighbor devices. The new version uses a different way of device stopping that allows to reactivate the device without affecting the neighbor devices. If for some reason you need to revert back to the old way of device stopping\returning you can use this option.
- Device error displaying: If some device has improperly configured drivers or has not loaded in a correct way by the system the program now displays that.
Other changes:
- Better displaying of technical information.
- Command line: “return” and “forcedreturn” commands returns separated error code if they are called on an active device.
- Various improvements in language files (Italian, Russian etc).
Bug fix:
- In some cases the native safely remove hardware icon may not be hidden.
- Duplicate autorun process could be run on OS startup.
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