Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Disabling Windows Autoplay

Have you ever been infected by a virus from someone’s flash disk even before you have open any file from the flash disk? Ever been inconvenience by your antivirus auto detecting viruses from someone’s flashdisk when all you want to do is to give them a file? I have and the reason is windows’ autoplay feature which starts executing a default program as instructed by the flashdisk the moment you insert it into your computer. This means before you even have a chance to scan the flashdisk, if infected, the flashdisk is already tryin to infect you!

 

To disable autoplay, edit your computer’s group policy by click start -> run then type gpedit.msc and click ok. This should open the group policy console from which you should click computer configuration -> administrative templates->system. After clicking system, scroll down to where it says Turn off Autoplay and doubnle click. A window such as the one below appears.

 

Click Enabled and choose All Drives as show below. Click OK then close the group policy console and that’s it!

No comments: