XPost: alt.windows7.general
"R.Wieser" <
address@not.available> wrote:
I've got an USB drive which I sometimes connect to a different (XPsp3) computer. Every time such a computer sees a new USB drive it pops up
a dialog in which I have to chose what kind of data is on the drive :
music, movies, data, etc.
This has become a bit of a nuissance to me.
I know I can /tell the OS/ how it should (initially) regard such a
new USB drive, but that does not help much when the USB drive is
plugged into a new 'puter.
My question : is there a way to *mark the USB drive itself* as being
a data drive (and therefore skipping the above mentioned dialog) ?
Disable autoplay in each computer. The USB drive gets assigned a driver letter, so it will be visible in Windows Explorer to open like any other
drive. There is no way to get the USB drive to disable autoplay in the computer into which it gets plugged.
The USB enumeration data (saved in the registry during the hardware
handshaking when the USB drive gets plugged in) only specifies the type
of device, not the type of files on the device.
You can search online for "disable autoplay windows <version>". If you
hit any articles that refer to Microsoft articles, expect those links to
fail. Microsoft got busy deleting help and KB articles on XP and 7
after dropping extended support for them. You need to find articles
that don't rely on external references, and instead give you the
registry settings to modify.
Windows 10 exposes the autoplay settings. Just search in the Start menu
(click Start, start typing "autoplay"). Windows 8 exposed it, too. In
Windows 7, you opened Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, and selected
AutoPlay. In Windows 10, I have autoplay simply open File Explorer for
the USB drive. Back in Windows 7, as I recall, I disabled autoplay,
plugged in the USB drive, and manually opened Windows Explorer when I
wanted to look at files on that drive. Way back in Windows XP, you had
to edit a policy (but Home users didn't have gpedit.msc), or make
registry edits. At some point, Microsoft disabled AutoRun in Windows,
but back in Windows XP you had to do that via registry edit.
https://auditsquare.com/advisory/windows/how-to-disable-autorun
While that makes it look like you disable autoplay per drive, it
probably actually just changed the bit it the bitmask value for a
registry entry. That is, if you select a DVD drive and disable autoplay
for it, all device types of optical media had autoplay disabled. Same
for USB drives: plug in a USB drive, right-click on it in Windows
Explorer to select Properties, and use the AutoPlay tab to Take No
Action. You probably have to use the content type drop-down box to pick
other media types, and select Take No Action for them, too. Since the
registry entry is bitmasked, each media type had its own bit in the
value, and this is just a GUI means of changing each bit.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-disable-the-autorun-functionality-in-windows-8e5ff0da-c526-7624-c064-ff82aecfd145
Been awhile since I last used Windows XP. Almost looks like Windows XP
didn't have autoplay, just autorun, and later Microsoft sliced apart
autorun into simple autorun (when the autorun.inf file is found in the
root folder of removable media) and autoplay (type of action based on
content type of injected removable media). That article mentions the
policy settings in the registry (all policies are registry entries) that
you change if you don't have gpedit.msc (missing in Home editions). It
shows the bitmasking of the value (what each bit in the value controls).
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