

But for those of us that like the function and wish to use it, there are a few 3rd party utilities around to help bring back Windows autorun to USB removable devices. When using a USB stick though, the best you’re likely to get is the option to open it up and view the files.Īutoplay is nice and everything, but what about if you want your Windows to recognize and process the autorun.inf file on a USB flash drive every time you insert it into your computer? Of course security conscious people might not like the idea of this, and enabling autorun is not something inexperienced users should be doing, especially if devices don’t come from a fully trusted source.

For instance, if you insert a blank CD Windows will ask if you want to write to it, or a music CD will give you the option to play the contents.

The options then differ depending on what type of media Windows has detected. Usually when you plug in your USB flash drive or device, you’ll get the Autoplay window asking what would you like to do next. USB drives when they are inserted haven’t really had the autorun.inf file fully processed since early versions of Windows XP, and instead the USB autorun launching is either included in the Autoplay function or ignored altogether as happens in Vista and 7. You can still get your Windows DVD or game CD to launch automatically or via double clicking on the drive icon. The Autorun functionality has been reduced in more recent versions of Windows for security purposes and in Windows 7 the autorun.inf file is almost completely ignored for all media except CD’s and DVD’s. When Windows detects the presence of the file, it reads it and looks for the line to auto launch an executable or file, and if found, launches the program. This function is known as Autorun and has been around since Windows 95 and is simply a small text file called autorun.inf that sits in the root folder of the inserted device. Unfortunately, in recent times times the function has been used for more malicious purposes and has become quite a common way to spread and infect machines with viruses, worms and trojans.

Whenever you insert a CD, DVD, Floppy disk, portable hard drive or USB stick into your computer, the Windows operating system has the ability to automatically launch a program directly from the media or run a game installer etc. Restoro has been downloaded by 0 readers this month.Download Restoro PC Repair Tool that comes with Patented Technologies (patent available here).Ĭlick Start Scan to find Windows issues that could be causing PC problems.Ĭlick Repair All to fix issues affecting your computer's security and performance.
