how to disable Autorun in Windows XP

[eclectica]

In Windows 98 and Millennium I used to disable Autorun by going into Control Panel-->Device Manager and selecting the properties of the CD drive to disable "auto insert notification".

In Windows XP the controls can be found by going into My Computer and clicking on the CD drive and then its properties. In AutoPlay, under each choice to "Select an action to perform" select to "Take no action". Do that for each of the seven variables Music files, Pictures, Video files, Mixed content, Music CD, DVD Movie, Blank CD. I have a combination CD burner and DVD drive in one unit which my computer interprets as two separate drives D and E, so I had 14 variables to adjust in total.

Another method is to go to Run "regedit" and then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-->SYSTEM-->CurrentControlSet-->Services-->Cdrom. There double click on "AutoRun" and change the value to 0. See the attachment below.

Autorun can also be cancelled by holding the shift key down when inserting the CD into the unit. It is useful to disable it to prevent malware or problem CDs from affecting your computer. Prior to disabling Autorun, I had a corrupted photo CD from the photo shop that caused problems for me and crashed the computer, and the only way to get around it was to hold the shift key when inserting it. Some of the copy protected CDs can still be ripped and played properly on the computer simply by disabling Autorun.

[mekajinn]

good stuff E... disabling autorun is a must in XP considering how it reacts to corrupted discs =]

[-GS-]

Speaking of removing and disabling stuff in Windows OS's,
I've made me a new WinXP CD which ahs SP2 and the latest critical updates
included. And its also Unattended, meaning I just have to choose the partition
where to install, and perhaps feed the disket fo Raid drivers if needed and
the rest of it goes automatically until it ends up in Desktop as Admin.

Anyone intherested, check out nLite (http://nuhi.msfn.org/),
I found it from this site: MSFN (http://www.msfn.org/) , and their forums (http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php)

Been wasting many hours on the Personal XP but its been worth it.
I've learned great deal more how it works and now I have a Xp-install-CD
which works the way I want.
After the install the desktop, services and other settings are just the way I want 'em.
Saves time a lot, but you'll probably dont need that kind of CD if you dont reinstall Windows
so often like I do.

:)

[eclectica]

Since I first posted this I have formatted the computer and upgraded to Windows XP SP2, and the computer now shows the CD unit as one drive D instead of two drives D and E. I went and tried to change the seven variables for AutoPlay to take no action for all of them, yet it continued to autoplay a photo CD from Duane Reade, that has a Telepix image viewer which always freezes the computer every time I insert the CD.

Holding the shift key when closing the CD didn't prevent autorunning either, so I had to go with the second method, which is to change the registry setting of Autorun from 1 to 0. The computer must be restarted first in order for the setting to work.

When you want to examine the files on the CD without running the software with it, you can right click on the CD drive in "My Computer" and select "Explore". Otherwise if you select "Open", the Autorun will start if it is enabled on your computer, and the shitty software on the CD will start loading.