Introduction

Why Disable Autoplay?

First of all I’ll explain to you what is autoplay for. Whenever you insert a CD, or a flash disk, Windows automatically looks for a file called autorun.inf. These are files that contains commands on which should run automatically. Like when you insert a CD of Microsoft office or other installation CD, a program (like a wizard or a menu) will automatically run. What makes these program run is because of the autorun script.

How To Turn it Off

There are many ways of turning it off. We’ll start of from Windows XP.

1. Go to start > then run.
2. Type in gpedit.msc.
3. You will see to panes, on the left, Under Go to the Administrative Templates Folder, choose Administrative Templates then System

For Windows Vista and Windows 7 simplifies this in the following steps:

1. In the start menu, Open your control panel
2. Click Auto Play
3. Uncheck Use autoplay for all media and devices

From that you have secured your PC from the basic potential threat. You might also need to install an antivirus and Autoplay blocker.

Just bear in mind that this does not assure you that the program won’t run when you double click the drive. There are some cases that when you double click a drive even autoplay is turned off, the program will still execute. It is still safe if you either open the file in the left or right click the drive and choose open.