In order to disable autorun, you must first understand what it is and what it serves. When connecting removable media to a computer, the operating system pre-reads them in order to determine the contents. According to the results of processing this information, Windows offers the user a choice of several programs for working with the data that she found on the connected drive. This procedure is called autorun. In addition to the obvious usefulness, this function can be accompanied by negative aspects.
The main reason that autostart is often disabled is the vulnerability of the system to virus programs. The “victim” virus attack is the system file “autorun.exe”. Most protection programs correctly identify the occurrence of this dangerous situation, however, the user does not always have time to respond to warning messages and prevent the virus from entering your computer.
Sometimes disabling startup is carried out in order to save time and computer resources that are spent on reading media. This procedure can be quite lengthy in cases where the drive contains large amounts of information or many different files.
In various versions of Windows, autostart is disabled in different ways. For example, in Windows XP there is only one way for this, which involves editing the registry. In Windows 7 and newer versions of the system, a special section has appeared in the computer control panel that is responsible for the operation of this function.
In order to disable the startup of Windows XP, you must open the system registry . To do this, go to the "Start" menu and click "Run." A small window "Program Selection" will open, where gpedit.msc should be entered. Confirming your actions by pressing the “Ok” key, the user will get access to the “Group Policy” section.
Then you need to select "Computer Configuration", "Administrative Templates". By opening the System directory there, the user can see the service in the right half of the window, which is called Disable Autostart. Pressing the right button will bring up its properties, where you should activate the “Enabled” item and select “all drives” from the drop-down list. If you wish, you can only disable autorun of disks through an optical drive, and for usb connections, leave it turned on.
Disabling Windows 7 autorun can be done in a similar way, however, this system also has a simpler method. By opening the “Start”, “Control Panel”, “All Elements ...”, the user can see the “Autostart” section. Double-clicking will open a window in which you need to find the "Use autorun for all ..." field and uncheck the box indicating the activity of this function. The result of the actions taken must be saved.
As a result of these simple steps, you can significantly increase the security level of your PC, making it harder for virus programs to penetrate the system.