Disabling Autorun feature

Loads of trojan based viruses are wrecking havoc on PCs everywhere. Flash disks/ Memory sticks or Thumb drives are the main sources of spreading of this virus. The autorun feature in Windows gives these VIRUSes a way to infect PCs by automatically launching themselves when the autorun feature is enabled.

Here's how to disable autorun feature -

If you are using Windows XP Professional , follow these steps

1. Click Start and then click Run
2. Type gpedit.msc and click OK
3. The Group Policy window will open. In the left pane, double-click Administrative Templates
4. In the right pane, double-click System
5. Scroll down the list and double-click Turn Off Autoplay
6. In the Turn Off Autoplay Properties window, select Enabled. From the dropdown next to Turn Off Autoplay on, select All drives and then click OK
7. Exit Group Policy by selecting File, then choosing Exit from the menu.

If you are using Windows XP Home Edition , follow these steps

You will need to make the changes by editing the registry directly.

1. Click on Start and then click Run
2. Type regedit and click OK. The Registry Editor window will open.
3. In the left pane, navigate to:
4. HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> Explorer.
5. With Explorer highlighted, in the right-pane right click the value NoDriveTypeAutoRun and select Modify from the drop down menu. The base value will be set to Hexadecimal. If not, select Hexadecimal.
6. Type 95 and click OK.
7. Note that this will stop Autorun on removable/USB drives, but still allow it on CD ROM drives. If you want to disable autorun on both, substitute b5 for the 95.
8. Exit Registry Editor by selecting File, then choosing Exit from the menu.
9. You will now need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.