(no subject)
Google "disable autoplay xp" and the first hit is a MS knowledge base article that delves way the #*&% too deeply into the history of Windows' autoplay, and the various security patches that more or less all fail to provide users with what we REALLY wanted, namely a simple, neat, accessible switch to turn off autoplay completely and entirely for all drives, be they permanently installed internal CD/DVD drives, or external USB hard drives, or network shares mounted as drives, or flash drives, or whatever.
How hard is this for Microsoft to wrap its head around? When I connect a thumb drive or other USB external mass storage device, or insert a CD or flash drive... you see the pattern? Anytime I mount an additional filesystem? Whenever I ADD 1 TO DRIVES GIVING DRIVES; ...don't make me wait while you scan that filesystem for various types of content just so that you can then ask me what I want to "automatically" do with that content. The answer is always "Do Nothing". I want to not wait for the autoplay subsystem, and I don't want to reactively configure it again and again to not-intervene for each type of supported content on each type of supported drive.
For some incomprehensible reason there is just such a switch, but it remains buried in Windows' Policy Editor.
- run gpedit.msc
- browse the tree in the left pane to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
- in the right-hand pane find the policy named "Turn off Autoplay"
- double-click it, set it "Enabled" and in the drop-down list select "All drives"
- click the "Apply" button, then "OK" and rejoice
TweakUI also exposes this setting on a per-drive-letter basis, but it's hit-or-miss whether it will stick on removable drives. The Policy Editor approach simply locks out Autoplay before it ever gets a chance to second-guess.
How hard is this for Microsoft to wrap its head around? When I connect a thumb drive or other USB external mass storage device, or insert a CD or flash drive... you see the pattern? Anytime I mount an additional filesystem? Whenever I ADD 1 TO DRIVES GIVING DRIVES; ...don't make me wait while you scan that filesystem for various types of content just so that you can then ask me what I want to "automatically" do with that content. The answer is always "Do Nothing". I want to not wait for the autoplay subsystem, and I don't want to reactively configure it again and again to not-intervene for each type of supported content on each type of supported drive.
For some incomprehensible reason there is just such a switch, but it remains buried in Windows' Policy Editor.
- run gpedit.msc
- browse the tree in the left pane to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
- in the right-hand pane find the policy named "Turn off Autoplay"
- double-click it, set it "Enabled" and in the drop-down list select "All drives"
- click the "Apply" button, then "OK" and rejoice
TweakUI also exposes this setting on a per-drive-letter basis, but it's hit-or-miss whether it will stick on removable drives. The Policy Editor approach simply locks out Autoplay before it ever gets a chance to second-guess.