Talk:Autorun

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A line by line explanation of the "Sample AutoRun.inf File" would be useful.

Contents 1 Factual inaccuracy 2 A better way? 3 Beat the Home Team! 4 Bold and italicized comments should be worked into the article

[edit] Factual inaccuracy

I too am hesitant to alter the article for the same reason, but I do know that the method presented for disabling AutoRun via the Registry is actually the method for disabling AutoPlay, and is exactly what TweakUI does for you from a friendlier interface. Those instructions ought to be moved to the AutoPlay section.

AutoPlay can use information from the AutoRun.inf file, and can be made to add an option (specified with an action= line) to the AutoPlay menu, or--in the case of a CD-ROM---to execute a program immediately without prompting the user. According to the MSDN reference on autorun.inf syntax [1], this ought not to be possible from a removable USB flash drive. Explorer also uses information from the AutoRun.inf file, such as to add options to the drive's context menu, to change the icon and name displayed for the drive in Explorer, and to automatically launch a program on the media when the drive is double-clicked in My Computer.

What you really need to disable is the use of AutoRun.inf. Nick Brown's article previously mentioned [2] sounds to me like a brilliant option. It prevents both AutoPlay and Explorer uses of the AutoRun.inf file.

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Yhank you so much for this. This had been driving me nuts for weeks because my sister kept fucking up my PC with all the momory cards she borrows from her friends. For the love of god why did MS ever invent this "Feature".

Could somebody who knows how to edit things properly make appropriate changes to the article?

Thanks! Dan M 59.96.44.184 (talk) 06:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE: Please see http://autorun.synthasite.com/ for a more accurate description of the differences between AutoRun, AutoPlay, and Execution of the Drive's Default Command, and more...

59.92.129.166 (talk) 01:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A better way?

I'm hesitant to alter the article as I've never edited before, but: I don't feel disabling Autorun by setting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CDRom to 0 is the best idea. In Windows 2000/NT/XP this also disables Media Change Notification (MCN) so Windows won't display the disk label or update displayed content when the disk in the drive is changed. (See newsgroup posts and my responses here.)

I'd recommend instead using NoDriveTypeAutoRun under the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer, as explained in this Microsoft TechNet article: NoDriveTypeAutoRun and leaving the Services\CDRom entry set to 1. You can then disable AutoRun\Play selectively on certain drives or by setting it to 0xFF (decimal 255) on all drives, without the unwanted side-effects.

Comments welcome! --Nowl 15:09, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I just dumped a bunch of bold-italicized text into the middle of the article in a couple places. I just don't have time to rewrite things correctly and am hoping someone else can pick up the pieces. There is a lot of confusion over what AutoRun and AutoPlay means. I think a lot of people might be coming here for information on how to totally kill this insane feature. I know I did because we got infected by a virus jumping around on a memory stick. None of the standard ways that Microsoft offers actually stops AutoPlay from running when the user naturally double clicks on CD-ROM or USB stick drive icons. I only found that one article about the non-standard way of killing AUTORUN.INF files permanently. And it works perfectly. By itself, it prevents code on media from ever running without the user actually clicking directly on the executable itself. So I wanted to get this important info out there. --207.154.79.131 (talk) 01:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Beat the Home Team!

This article lacks information about autorun.inf commands, some (but not all) of which is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/818804. Information about commands 'action' and 'label' (and perhaps others) is absent even from there, probably due to the age of the page (Last Review: July 12, 2004). Such information's inclusion here would either encourage MS to update their article or beat them at describing their own product. Thanks!--Jesdisciple (talk) 05:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bold and italicized comments should be worked into the article

What is up with this article? The bold/italicized stuff should just be worked into the content instead of pointing out errors with the article. I don't have time to edit this, but someone fix it-- it's just dumb. --63.226.239.213 (talk) 18:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)