How to Disable Autorun of USB in Windows XP

Prevent Your Computer from Virus Attacks by Disabling Autorun of USB in Windows XP

Data carrying devices such as USBs and/or MP3 devices could be very helpful in carrying large chunks of data from one place to another. You can place it in your pocket and carry it anywhere or everywhere you go.

Despite, it usefulness these portable storage devices could easily be affected with harmful viruses, such as Torjan, Spywares, Malwares, etc and even worse is that whenever you plug them back in to your system, the auto run feature will boot up the pen drive automatically, thus infecting your computer by those viruses.

Likewise, Auto run feature in Windows could also prove very annoying. A small window will pop up each time you insert the pen drive into the computer, asking what you would like to do with those files. However, there’s a simpler solution to these problems.

In order to get rid of the Autorun feature in Windows XP, you will have to follow the procedure mentioned below;

1. Go to Start Menu, click on Run;
2. Type “gpedit.msc” (without quotes), and hit Enter,
3. A window will pop up, titled ‘Group Policy'



4. Click on ‘Administrative Templates‘ and then inside it, click ‘System‘,
5. On the right side of the pane, you will find an item labeled, ‘Turn off Autoplay‘



6. Double click on that item. A new window will pop out,
7. Under the settings tab, click the ‘Enabled‘ radio button and save changes.




Now you won’t have to worry about either the annoying pop up nor the viruses infecting your computer on USB insertion. This trick will not only help you prevent viruses entering your system, but if you are suspicious you can format your USB pen drive also.