Disable Autoplay of Audio CDs and USB Drives
I find it very annoying when I go home from work and plug my laptop into my external hard drive… The autoplay window always pops up and asks me what I want to do with the files, which may be fine the first time, but definitely isn’t after a year of that.
To get to the configuration screen for this setting, go to Start Menu \ Run and type in:
gpedit.msc
You will see the Group Policy window. You should select Administrative Templates \ System in the tree view:
You will see an item in the right side pane called “Turn off Autoplay”
Double click the item, and set the radio button to Enabled, and change the “Turn off Autoplay on” to All Drives.
Now you should be safe from the autoplay monster.
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Thank you very much! It has been irritating me over a year how Windows ignores my preference to not AutoPlay under the Drive Properties…
hey this thing is totally right but in my computer i didnt find any file of this name gpedit.msc i search everywhere but i dont have this file in my computer soo would you like too help with any other solutions bye waiting for your keen response
I have the opposite problem.- I liked that autoplay- it’s gone and I want to restore it!
..until recently my autoplay worked so that whenever I inserted my Sandisk the window would appear asking me what I wanted to do…..I really liked that feature and now it’s disappeared (I think after I did a tune-up offered by Dell). Any advice about restoring it?
Hi guys!Pleazzzz help me out here!I have a similar prob.When I double-click on my external usb drive(250giga)an open with dialog pops up but the option for choosing a programme are deactivated(grey).If I right click on the drive and click open or explore it will open allright,but what about the double click.I should also mention that this is a prob that persists.I have noticed that the only way to get rid of it is by formatting the disc.I found that out because this prob infected my other drives (the 2 internal partitions I have and a usb stick).The most remarkable is that when I plugged the stick into another pc,the prob was still there,even for the other pc.(Not for its internal drives,of the second PC I mean.)To sum up,now I have formatted the 2 internal drives of the first PC and the usb stick,and they are just fine right now,but the external 250 giga drive is still a prob.Please suggest any solution apart from formatting!I ‘m trying to avoid that…Thx in advance!
P.S.:Please respond as soon as possible!
Okay, guys, this is driving me nuts. I used to put audio CDs in and explorer gave me each track’s file size and I could drag the files to my hard drive. Suddenly, every track is 1kb and won’t copy, explorer just makes a shortcut. help?
This doesn’t seem to work on XP Home edition (there’s no gpedit). Is there a registry value you can change or something instead?
gpedit.msc is one of the features of XP Pro; it does not exist in XP Home.
For Windows XP Home, try TweakUI from Microsoft instead; it can be downloaded at http://download.microsoft.com/.....ySetup.exe
Thanks John. I did indeed try TweakUI, and it worked really well. It should come with Windows, IMO.
YOU RULE!! I’ve been trying to turn AUTOPLAY off on my external drives for months. Many thanks!
well i want that how can i disable my other removable devices such as the ‘c’ derive or ‘d’ derive of hard disk.because when i double cliclk on the ‘c’ derive it does not open it then i right click on the same derive and then click open it.and there is an option comes out whn i click any of ma hard derive the option is ‘auto play’ why it is appear whn i right on the any derive.plz plz help me out em waitin…..of ur response.tc
hi,
When iam right click on any hard disk partition it’s shown Autoplay command in Menu. normally it will show Open Command as first command.
means double click on parition it’s go to open a new window .
how to fix this problem please give me reply
Thanking you
i was affected by one of the virus name PET.32 and it was get rid off. Now, i have a problem that the time when i open my harddisk, it appears that ” Windows cannot find pet32.exe. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click search”.. Can anyone have anyways to help me solve this problem pls..????
Hi,
i’m having the same problem. I have 3 drives in my pc (c, d, e ). When i right click on my c: drive the default is open but on my d & e drive it is auto. All 3 drive are physical hard drives. i’ve tried “regsvr32 /i shell32.dll” as well as
Go to the the registry editor:
under the key
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2
delete all sub keys which have similar structure like:
Shell\Auto
Shell\Auto\command with value = C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\RunDLL32.EXE Shell32.DLL,ShellExec_RunDLL infrom.exe
Shell\AutoRun
Shel\AutoPlay
i do not find the subkeys on my pc but if i delete the “mountpoint2″ completely then the defaults are correct. only problem is when i reboot it puts the registry key back and the same problem.
i have updated my virus package and checked for viruses, none found. my c: drive have been formatted and re-installed.
You are the king !!!
Thanks a lot this worked brilliantly
hey its not working on d drive and e drive, so it would be good of u if u provide anyother trick to turnout autoplay off
i have a problem.when i open add/remove programe then it shows all the programe but some of them i can’t delete.some are deleteable.plz give me solution.
Thank you so much for your article. I have been searching for a while to find the instruction on how to turn off the auto run pop-up but could not find it. I am glad you helped.
thank u sooooooo much
I have been hunting around for a solution to a similar problem. I have for some unknown reason lost the autoplay on my CD/DVD drive and also when I put a USB drive in it used to pop up with an option to open, play etc. Now this does not happen. I have checked the registry and autoplay is switched on, I have checked it is enabled on every drive and also tried TweakUI but that says it is set to auotun?? I seem to be going round in circles with no luck. I have XP Home with SP2 installed any one that can help me I would be eternally grateful
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i want to have the USB autoplay on since i had it before and then lost it. bythe way the windows operating system is XP professional.
i have the same prob. how can i disable my other removable devices such as the ‘c’ derive or ‘d’ derive of hard disk.because when i double cliclk on the ‘c’ derive it does not open it then i right click on the same derive and then click open it.and there is an option comes out whn i click any of ma hard derive the option is ‘auto play’ why it is appear whn i right on the any derive.plz plz help me
…..of ur response.tc
anyone pls help me with this
i had an external hard disk but had some problemwith it
and now the system is not recognizing it
as soon as i plug it to the system it shows a msg of unknown device
it has a lot of important information in it
someone please help me
i have to get the entire stuff of the hard disk back
Can’t believe I forgot about Tweak UI from Microsoft. The icon is right on my desktop. It worked like a champ to turn off the Autoplay feature on my external hard drive.
Thanks John
Many thanks for your help!
Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eric on October 9, 2007 5:09 pm
I can only second this
Hey, to all that still have problem with drives D, E, …
)
Delete the file autorun.inf from the drive and restart windows.
gpedit.msc does not exist in my Windows XP SP2.
cant find gpedit.msc
Help! i have vista ultimate 32 bit, and i can find and open the gpe, and i can find and open system under administrative templates. I have many items listed, but none have anything to do with autoplay. where is it??
When I use duble click it dose not working and it infected in all partions in my pc , Iam using winxp sp2 .. plz any one help me .. I have this problem in our network and I have 25 pc have same problem ..
Thanx
Haytham
If some kind of virus have changed the default action of your hard drive to AutoPlay
open regedit.exe and find this key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2
go trough all CLSID’s (those garbish alphanumeric keys)
then check all Shell subkeys and change the Default value/Data to “Open” and/or remove all the autoplay subkeys
if you want to save the autoplay option to certain drives (e.g. CD/DVD drives) simply do all the above 1 step at a time and constantly check what is changed in Explorer (these registry changes work instantly). It is hard to find which CLSID corresponds to a certain drive, thus after changing the “shell value” you need to right-click the drive in explorer and see if the AutoPlay or Open is set as the default(bold) action.
And next time use antivirus
dont delete mount point2 just right click on dat and click on premisions and then click on restricted:d
here u go
OK. All I did to turn this off is Open MyComputer, right click on the CD player, Click on Open AutoPlay. At the bottom (of the window not the list) is a link that says ‘Set Autoplay defaults in control panel’; click that link and set your preferences. Simple!!!
This didn’t work for me, the run command didn’t work, however properties of the drive, autoplay tab – then selecting don’t do anything for every possible media option did the trick.
i have tryed this but it cant find gpedit.msc, is there anouther way of doing this
Thanks a lot…I was fiddling with registry for this before…Thanks again…
I have problem with hard disk, It is not open when I double click. It says choos aprogram……..to open.
You can also turn off autoplay feature for USB drives by editing Windows Registry:
1. Find key HKEY_CURRENT_USER | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer
2. Create new entry to turn off autoplay function by right click Edit | New | Dword Value then name it NoSaveSettings
3. Find an entry NoDriveTypeAutorun with a Dword value 91 and give a Dword value 95
4. Restart your PC
Hi i have the exact opposite of this problem, autoplay does not come on when i plug my usb stick in my computer and i want it to come on. Any ideas?
cheers
Gotta love the silly virus. If you have the silly virus, disable auto play, get rid of the virus on your computer, and delete the files off your external or thumb drive. To delete the files off you thumb drive; open my computer, click tools>folder options. On the view tab, uncheck hide protected operating system files. eject and re-attach your external. It should open normally now and you will see a autorun.inf and a boot.exe or ah.exe. delete these files and you are rid of the silly virus. you external is not protected if you plug it into another computer but it will not transfer back onto yours so just delete the files when you see them.
what a solution. we were formatting pc till date for this problem. thanks a lot
hi, it took me only a minute to solve this problem the way you have shown.thanks a lot
Thanks a lot. You saved my life
hi! i have a similar yet quite a different problem… i can’t open my c drive by double-clicking. when i do that, a window opens that says “choose a program among the list to open it” or something like that. this also appears when i right-click the c drive and choose either open (it didn’t change to autoplay) or explore. in short, i can’t open my c drive! what should i do?
Check if there is a hidden/visible autorun.inf file on the root of the drive. if yes remove it.
Also, some virus/trojens can create autorun.inf files that are completely hidden
Bloody brilliant mate. Saved me from the most annoying part of my work. Everyday i hook up atleast 20-30 Harddrives to my computer to “ghost” them. And this saves me both time and stress. Thank you
Autoplay was such an annoyance for me. Thank you for helping me getting rid of it.
Thanks alot nice post
can the gpedit.msc solution be scripted ?
You should try to repair windows. If you cannot find the file, it’s probably because windows lost it or you have a virus. Try doing a virus scan as well. I recommend Symantec. Hey Diamond: you probably have the silly virus. Follow my instructions in my previous post to find it.
Works fine! Bravo! Thanks!
With TweakUI for XP you can choose which types of drives to disable:
- removable drives.
- fixed drives.
- network drives.
- CD-ROM drives.
- RAM drives.
- unknown type.
- all types of drives.
For instance you might want to disable Autoplay for USB sticks but leave Autoplay for CDs on, etc.
My Name is Rob and I have a problem with getting my autoplay back on my PC for Windows XP.
I deleted Photoshop Album Starter 3.0 off my computer and ever since then my autoplay function has been missing.
Can you please help me with this problem as I am sick of having to go through my computer followed by the scan disk to get to my folders.
Many thanks Rob.
I can’t find anything called System under Administrative Templates. There is just Windows Components.
Got any idea guys?? ‘Coz it seems very weird to me while everyone’s Group Policy contains it but mine doesn’t.
Great tip – thanks!
Great TNX!
It’s strange but when I run gpedit.msc and go to “administrative templates” I can only see “windows component”. The other three subcategory are not there . What’s wrong with my xp?
Yes, yes, yes
thank you!!!
it’s Great tip – many thanks!
Mario
@the OP of the guide (The Geek i assume
)
XP is OS which is running right? Which screen font is that? Its really smooth and looks lovely in cleartype.
Can anyone tell me which font that is and how to change my XP to that font.
I have XP home and downloaded TweakUI and i unticked the boxes but it hasnt done any good what so ever it still keeps on popping up.
Please help me
Thanks
oh yeah! this is what im talking about!!
thanks
Hey guys you are great helpers at How-To-Geek I allways wanted to get the rid of the autoplay problems and your easy steps helped me
To those who can’t see it, the administrative templates are only visible to members of administrators group. And since you are there, those using the Group Policy method might as well turn off autoplay under the user section as well, or as as they so ineloquently word it “enable disable autoplay”. In this day of rapidly spreading autorun trojans, disabling autorplay is absolutely essential for those using USB drives between computers. Some methods only turn it off for CDs. The Group Policy editor allows you to turn it off for all drives.
Oh, and for admin users of XP Pro, in gpedit.msc you first need to manually add the system template to the administrative templates sections of computer configuration and user configuration sections. Just right click on administrative templates.
YEAHHH!! Thanks you!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guys.
If you want to cancel autoplay only for Iphone but leave it active for the rest all you need to do is connect your Iphone (ignore or dismiss the autoplay) then go to my computer, find your iphone drive click the right mouse button, select properties, shift to the ‘events’ tab and choose ‘do nothing’ for the event of connecting.
I presume this will influance the iphone device only.
Wow, this is so awesome, I have lots of computers, and lots of external hard drives, and I’m always swapping them around since I have to move lots of data often, and networks are just to slow when you’re shuffling hundreds of gigs around. Anyway, autorun has been really, really and I mean *really* annoying me for years. Having it gone now is like bliss, pure happiness. Thank you.
Thank`s for this information. The USB DRIVES AUTOPLAY were driving me crazy!
many thanks – for win xp home – downloaded http://download.microsoft.com/…..ySetup.exe
went to drives- autoplay and disable, its working
thank you very much for your help..it gives me more knowledge..hope that you will continue your teachings with other people who didn’t yet explore there computers..God Bless
I was so anoying the Scan for media….. completely useless in my point of view, specially when inserting media with lots of data.
Thank you soooooooooooo much for this.
yeah u rule dear …..thanks for the suggestions for autoplay option…
Thank you, good way to do as suggestion… cheers for me
I found out about Autorun.ini being active on a USB drive when I saw the Recycler trojan coming via a USB flash memory.
That was a few weeks back until today I saw the BBC article on Microsoft paying $250K bounty for finding some other virus maker that apparently also comes via USB and other autoplays. I was wondering why they have designed this feature in the first place and why is it “not so obvious” to remove the feature.
Thank you for your straight forward instructions. Now my U3 doesn’t startup automatically either, which is a blessing because most of the time I want access to the storage area.
Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you. Autoplay has plagued me for the last time
My computer restarts automatically as soon as i double click the setup file of the game medal of honour airborne, and installation does not proceed.
THANKS
Thanks a lot, it works great…
Thank you!
I liked the Tweak UI Microsoft program option. It allowed me to shutoff the USB drives, but still keep autoplay for the CD-ROM. Thanks to all for releaving all my future pains. I’m going to install this program on all my computers.
Every time I connect my USB Device windows want’s to go to the update site to find something and it want’s to istall the driver again and again. I have the software for the device installed but it can’t find it.
The best programme for fixing autoplay is AutoPlay Repair (see: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/AutoplayRepair.html) Whether you want to switch it off or want it back, this programme will fix it. can can even switch off all potential drives (ie: s drive, t drive, u drive, etc).
Note that many viruses use this facility to run their malicious code, so IMO it is best to switch it all off. It’s the first thing I do when I install Windows.
TweakUI was really easy to use. I was trying to enable my Autoplay for so long… And ‘My Music’ folder lost it’s default icon too. But with TweakUI, i was able to restore everything back to the way it was.
Thank you John! =)
“dashakol
It’s strange but when I run gpedit.msc and go to “administrative templates” I can only see “windows component”. The other three subcategory are not there . What’s wrong with my xp? ”
Same thing on my XP.
But Henry’s advice above saved the day.
“Henry
This didn’t work for me, the run command didn’t work, however properties of the drive, autoplay tab – then selecting don’t do anything for every possible media option did the trick.”
More specifically:
windows XP SP3
1 left click ‘My Computer’
2 right click the drive in question
3 if ‘autoplay’ is on the popup list ignore it!
4 instead choose ‘properties’
5 chose autoplay tab
6 for every type of media in the list:
a “select an action to preform”
b ” take no action”
c apply
d OK
7 redo the above and check for each type of media in the list that ‘take no action’ is indicated by color. It is easy to make a mistake while doing 6.
8 Now ONE drive is done (maybe an external plug in drive E). So redo for each other drive (maybe the CD tray drive D).
Anyways now the autoplay monster has disappeared for good on my system!
Hope this keeps all USB Virus away.. Thanks for this article..
If System template is missing, right click on “Administrative templates”, select “Add/Remove templates…”, then click on Add, choose System.adm, click on Open, then close. Now you’ll see System under Administrative templates.
Thank you Scud!
Now me and all XP users should be able to easily turn on/off autoplay.
I know you’ve heard this a million times before, but once more can’t hurt:
1000X THX!!! that thing’s been driving me crazy!!!
The solution is to globally block autorun.inf files from executing, without trying to use the dialog boxes in XP and Vista to do this. Here’s the procedure:
Step 1. Start Notepad or another text editor.
Step 2. Copy the following text from this page and paste it into your text editor (everything between the square brackets should be all on one line):
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf]
@=”@SYS:DoesNotExist”
Step 3. Save the file with a name like NoAutoRun.reg, taking care to include the .reg extension.
Step 4. Right-click your .reg file and choose Merge. Confirm any warning prompts to add the information to the Registry.
It didn’t work after I clicked “apply”. Fortunately Kaspersky caught the bastard on the external drive. I then OK’d and closed the window and got a Kaspersky pop-up warning me of a mmc change which I OK’d. I removed the external drive, but when I put it back on it still did an auto-play.
the suggestion by “Crow” worked.
thanks Scud.. you’re my hero…
This is a useful link, maybe answers some of the different behaviors seen by some people:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715/
Long, but with good links in it.
SweBee
u r the the best thanks alot
Ur solution works like magic
thanks
Hey Guy’’s,just a beginner here,Im a little confused on all the above.
I need to disable auto play only for 3 wireless modem,is this possible,do not want to disable
everything else,please help,maybe I’ve missed something.Cheers!!!
Sorry,I posted comment May 18,2009 5:46AM,WRONG EMAIL ADDRESS
Windows Vista,need to remove autoplay only for wireless usb drive,
not all drives ,is this possible!!
apart from autorun blocking, if you want to completely block a usb drive or ipod or digital camera of others but allow only yours on your laptop or pc you can try usb security products, some of them are upcopy and uhook personal 2.1
thanks