USB flash drive - USB storage device for data storage. By default, when you connect it to your computer or laptop, autoplay is triggered. The system reads data from the media and offers options for how or what to open the USB flash drive. But what if autorun is not needed for security or privacy reasons?
Disabling autorun is especially important now. In the Internet era, flash drives are actively used to transfer information, viruses, Trojans and other troubles. Disabling autorun will help avoid the consequences, to do this, open the control panel by clicking the corresponding icon. Click on Hardware and Sound, then select AutoPlay. In the window that opens, uncheck the box Use autorun for all media and devices. Save your changes before exiting. This item will disable autorun for absolutely all devices. The method described above is not the only one. Log in to the control panel, in the upper right of the quick search window, enter Change group policy into it. Select the line under Administration. The same editor can be opened with a quick command, for this press the combination Win + R (Win button on the keyboard with the image of the Windows logo) - the Run window will open. Enter Gpedit.msc in it. Click OK.
- computer configuration;
- administrative templates;
- autorun policy.
Double-click to open Disable autorun.
Initially marked with a dot Not set. It should be noted Enable, there is a little confusion here, this is how you enable autostart disabling. In the drop-down list of options, select - Drives for CD-ROMs and removable media devices. Click OK. Close the Editor. You can also disable the automatic launch of the flash drive through the registry. To do this, repeat the Win + R combination. Enter the REGEDIT command to open the Windows Registry Editor. The editor will open. Go to the address in the registry, double-click on the AutoRun parameter and change the parameter value from one to zero in the window. Start the registry editor, go to the address. Create a section with the right mouse button and name it Explorer. Create a NoDriveTypeAutoRun string parameter here and set it to 0x4. Save. If you want to disable autoplay on all devices altogether, set the value to 0xFF. It is recommended that you only tune the registry for experienced users. Changing parameters carelessly can lead to freezes or inability to load the operating system.
Undoubtedly, the autorun of a flash drive or any other removable media is very convenient for users. You just need to insert the device into the USB output on your computer or laptop and voila, you will immediately see its contents with files and folders. Thus, you save yourself unnecessary clicks.
But the autorun of the flash drive will be safe and harmless only if a high-quality antivirus is installed on your computer. Otherwise, you risk infecting your system with malicious files and losing a lot of data from your hard drive.
Also, if there are a lot of files on your flash drive, then during autorun there is a chance that the computer will slow down and glitch. This defect applies only to owners of old and weak computers or laptops.
To avoid problems with viruses and glitches, I recommend that you disable the autorun of flash drives. This is done very easily, and with the help of this instruction you will generally cope with the task at hand in a matter of minutes. Let's take a look at a few ways to help you disable autorun USB storage media.
Method one
This method of disabling the autorun of a flash drive is suitable for users of both Windows 7 and Windows 8.
So, open the Start Menu. Then in the search box enter the following phrase “ Change group policy ". Your system will find the appropriate section in the "Control Panel". Click on it.
For users of the Windows 8 operating system, I advise you to install the same Start menu as on my computer. You can read how to do this.
The " Local Group Policy Editor". On the left you will see a tree-shaped menu. Click on the folder " Administrative Templates", then " Autorun policy". On the right side of the window, you will see 4 states. You need to open the first one, which is named " Disable autorun».
After that, a new dialog box "Turn off autostart" will open. In the upper left corner you have 3 states of this parameter " Not set», « Included" and " Disabled". You probably already guessed that you need to check the box next to " Disabled».
In order to save the settings, press the button " Apply».
Second way
This method will help you not just turn off the autorun of the flash drive, but configure it for a specific type of device. Well, of course, you can also turn off everything at once.
To get started, go to “ Control Panel". Then set the view to "small icons". Now find the parameter " Autostart". We open it.
And now you have a lot of room to customize your preferences. Here you can configure autorun for disks, software, memory cards and, of course, removable media.
For those who just want to disable the autorun of flash drives and other devices, I recommend simply unchecking the box from the item " Use autoplay for all media and devices", Which is located at the very top. Then press the button " Save».
The third way
A very useful tool that is able to block viruses from accessing your computer under the removable media autorun tool. And most importantly, this utility is absolutely free.
There is also a similar freeware Antirun program. I will not mention the paid ones, since you can find them anyway.
Fourth way
Most antiviruses have a function to disable the autorun of flash drives. This is usually set by default, but I advise you to play it safe and climb in the settings of your antivirus.
So we looked at 4 of the simplest and very easy ways to disable such an option as autorun a flash drive or any other removable media. Hope this tutorial helped you.
Autorun (not to be confused with autorun) is a nice and useful feature of Windows operating systems. It takes on some of the tasks and automates certain processes that otherwise the user would have to do himself. All you need to do is connect the removable device to your computer and Windows will automatically perform some tasks. For example, it will open a photo app, launch a media player, or open a file explorer. In this article, we will talk about how to enable autoplay for a flash drive, external drive or any other device, as well as how to disable it and why to do it.
How to enable auto start in Windows 10 Settings
The section for automatic start of connected devices has a separate section in Windows 10 Settings. Go to it to enable autorun or repair the system in case of malfunctions. For example, if autorun is missing.
Click on Win+ I(this is the fastest way to open Options) and go to the section Devices - Autostart.
There is a single switch that is responsible for enabling or disabling autorun.
A little below the system will prompt you to set default actions for certain devices. This can be a removable media (USB flash drive or disk), a memory card or, for example, your smartphone, as in the screenshot.
From the drop-down menu, you can select one and the proposed actions. By default, the system asks the user for the required action each time. If you want to change the preferred action or make the system constantly ask you, you need to change these parameters.
When setting the parameter Asking every time Windows will prompt you for a specific action with the connected device. The selection menu will appear as a standard notification.
From here, you can also disable autorun for a specific type of device. This is useful if you need autorun for certain devices but do not want to allow other types of devices to boot automatically. For example, you can prevent removable media from starting, but allow your phone to autoplay. In this case, for an individual device from the drop-down menu, select Take no action.
Enabling Autoplay in Windows 10 Control Panel
Classic Control Panel allows you to customize autorun a little more precisely, as it provides options for additional devices and file types. Also take a look there if the autorun of a flash drive or external drive has stopped working.
How to reset autoplay options in Windows 10
This is a feature that is not yet available in the modern Windows 10 Settings app, so you need to go to the classic Control Panel for it. You will need a reset if you need to roll back the parameters to the standard ones, or if autorun does not work for you.
How to turn off autoplay from a USB flash drive in Windows 10
In today's world of cloud storage and fast internet connections, flash drives are gradually losing their relevance, but are still widely used. This means that the risk of running into some kind of malicious infection through someone else's USB drive is still great. To reduce it, it is recommended to disable autorun of removable media in Windows 10. This can be done by several methods of varying degrees of complexity.
Note: Disabling autoplay does not protect you from viruses and malware. Always use standard Windows antivirus or third-party solutions. In this case, disabling autorun will only be an additional preventive protection.
Turn off autoplay through Windows 10 Settings
How to disable autoplay through Windows 10 Control Panel
Disable automatic launch via Registry Editor
Like all other parameters, you can disable autorun with a simple tweak of the operating system registry.
note: Editing the registry requires your account to have Administrator rights. If there are none, you will need a password from the Administrator profile.
Warning: Editing the registry is always associated with certain risks of damaging the computer software. Use other methods of disabling the autorun of the flash drive if you are not sure that you can return the registry to a previous state.
How to disable autoplay through the Group Policy Editor
note: Like Registry Editor, Group Policy Editor requires proper rights from the user account. You will need either an Administrator profile or a password from one.
This way, autorun can be either enabled or disabled on your Windows 10 computer.
Many users are annoyed by the automatic start of each storage device inserted into the device with information. At the same time, audio and video players can be automatically launched or simply pop-up windows with an alert. But even worse things can happen, such as the installation and spread of viruses.
To begin with, it should be said that there are two types of automatic start. The first one is AutoPlay, he looks for information of a certain type on the drive and offers to run it through the default utility. The second type is Autorun, it came from older versions of Windows. In this case, windows looks for the Autorun.ini file on disk, and then reads and runs the actions recorded in it. This can be as a banal change of the media icon to something non-standard user, or writing a virus to the system. This article will talk about how to disable autoplay on the system.
Universal ways
In this section, we will talk about several methods for disabling autorun, which are suitable for all systems, starting with Windows 7.
Disable Autorun and Autoplay in the Local Group Policy Editor
There are several ways to select the application you want. You can go to the start, then it is worth going to control Panel and then choose administration and here select the group policy editor. However, you can just press win + r and type in the window gpedit.msc... Next, the user will need to go to the computer configuration, after which in Administrative Templates, then click on componentswindows... In this directory, it is worth choosing an autorun policy.
Then you need to double-click the left mouse button on the parameter " Disable autorun". In the window that opens, you need to move the checkbox to Enabled, and in the lower part of the window, make sure that the parameter will be applied to all devices. 
Using the Registry Editor
The user may not have access to the previous item due to the system version or other restrictions. In this case, you should use the utility to edit the registry, you can open it by pressing win + r and writing regedit... After that, on the left side of the menu, you will need to go through the path consisting of directories HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \, also the user will need a second section with the same path, only it will start with HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
In these two directories, the user will need to right click on an empty space and create new parameterdword for 3 bits. It will be necessary to name it NoDriveTypeAutorun, he will have to set 000000FF as the value. Then you can close the editor and restart your computer. After that, the automatic start of all drives will be prohibited.
Disconnection via control panel
You can also disable it through the control panel. First, the user will need to run it, then Hardware and Sound and here click on Autostart. 
Here you can uncheck the use of autorun and in this case it will not be applied to any devices. However, if the user is afraid of viruses or he simply does not like certain actions, then everything can be configured here. It is possible to choose what the system will do with each type of file. You can configure everything so that video files will be played immediately, or the computer will not respond to them at all.
The user can configure all the items for himself, here you can select actions for audio and video, images and programs, dvd discs and so on. However, for programs it is better to disable automatic launch or leave at least sending a request to the user. 
Autoplay in Windows 8 and 8.1
For figure eight, everything is set up a little differently. First you should go to parameters, then to Change computer settings, then to Computer and devices, and then go to Autostart.
Here you can set the auto-start lever to Off, or customize the actions for each media type.
Disconnect in Windows 10
The top ten for customization should be go to parameters, then go to the device section. 
Next, you should select autorun in the left menu. Here you can flip the switch to the off position, or customize the actions for each media. 
Enabling autorun in Windows 7, 8, 10
Some users face the opposite problem. They want menus or files to play when a drive is inserted, but nothing happens. In this case, you should start checking the parameters described in the article. It's best to start with the parameters section or the control panel, this is the easiest and most likely way to disable the automatic start of drives. If everything is configured correctly there, then you should go to group policies and disable the specified parameter there. If everything is in order there, then it remains to go to the registry and delete the specified parameters.
The variety of malware systems is significant. And each type of virus must be fought with its own method. In this article, we will deal with only one type of "malware". Writing to startup has become almost a traditional practice among viruses. The scheme of action of the malicious program point by point is as follows:
Option 1
You are editing a working document from a flash drive on an already "infected" home PC.
Option 2
The virus is registered in the startup of your flash drive, and after you bring the flash drive to another computer, immediately when you insert the drive into the USB connector, another PC is infected. Most likely, such a distribution mechanism was provided to bypass the protection where a reliable firewall is installed, but the system administrator did not take care of the local security of working PCs and employees can bring any removable media they want.
The spread of such programs is due to the fact that by default in Windows XP / 7 / Vista, autoloading from removable media is allowed. This is done rather for the convenience of the user. But the adage is more suitable for this case. Fortunately, this vulnerability is easy to close with the appropriate settings if you are wondering how to disable the autorun of a flash drive and get rid of another problem in Windows. For systems of different generations (Windows XP / Vista and Seven), this procedure is slightly different. So let's get started.
In Windows XP (in Windows 2000 and the Server family, everything is done according to the same principle), you need to go to The most convenient way is to operate through the gpedit.msc script launched from the Start> Run menu. There you should select the subsection and in it "Administrative templates", where the sub-item "System" should be present. You need a policy setting called Disable Startup. By default, it is not specified, you should set it to "Disabled" and select "All drives" from the drop-down menu, and then click "OK". Now we put the flash drive in the slot and make sure that nothing starts. So you solved the problem like a flash drive. No more virus that spreads in this way will disturb you.
In the family of Windows 7 operating systems (excluding Basic and Home editions, where everything is done in the previous way or through the registry), this operation is slightly different in the direction of even more convenience in how to disable the autorun of a flash drive. After all, Microsoft's developers have largely taken into account the weaknesses of the previous generation systems. Perhaps the most important of them is the inconvenient location of fairly important settings, which therefore include the simple question of how to disable the autorun of a Windows 7 flash drive is quickly resolved. You just need to go to the "Autostart" menu item of the "All Control Panel Items" icon, which is obviously located in the "Control Panel". Uncheck the box "Use autorun for all media and devices", click "Save". You will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
This would be the end of our story, if there was no other universal way to disable autorun. Of course, we will talk about using the registry editor. The settings regarding autorun are scattered in three different places. First, disable the CD-ROM, if any, because this system component is considered obsolete and in many PCs, including desktop systems and netbooks, it is not used at all. To do this, set the value (0) to the Autorun parameter located in the SYSTEM hive (in the HKEY LOCAL MACHINE subsection) under the following path: CurrentControlServices> Services> CD-ROM.
Then, in the same section, go to another bush - SOFTWARE. After all, the autorun of removable media in explorer.exe, the system shell, also needs to be configured. Change the value of the NoDriveTypeAutoRun parameter to (FF). Its location is Microsoft> Windows> Current Version> Policies> Explorer. This value is not the only one that we need to change. To completely disable autorun, the second parameter of the same name will also need to be assigned the value (FF). This time, go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry subkey, but in exactly the same path as the previous one. The problem of how to remove the autorun of a flash drive has been finally solved. You will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
