How to stop XP automatic search when drive is plugged in?

November 29, 2006 11:31 AM

How do I stop windows from automatically searching for media when a new drive is plugged in? (Minor annoyance.)

When I plug in an external USB drive, windows automatically begins cataloguing the media, and an annoying little window pops up.

It gives me the option of cancelling the search, but I ususally can't click it in time.

There must be a way to turn this off altogether!

posted by univac to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Some googling lead me to this:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sys.pc-clone.dell/browse_thread/thread/67f6e2109e81c6fa/fee566244ca5798b%23fee566244ca5798b


Here is the useful part:

I plugged in my flash drive, selected "My Computer", to display all the drives and peripherals associated with my I8500, selected drive D: (my flash drive), right clicked, selected "Properties", then selected the "AutoPlay" tab. In the AutoPlay tab, I selected in turn each type of
file in the pull-down menu. For each type of file, I clicked on the "Select an action to perform" radio button, then selected "Take no action", and applied the setting.

After going through all four file types listed in the AutoPlay menu (Music files, Pictures, Video files and Mixed Content), I no longer have the "What do you want Windows to do?" annoyane. I can plug and unplug the flash drive, without any annoying Windows window coming up and
prompting me to take some action.
posted by mattdini at 11:56 AM on November 29, 2006

If you want to disable autorun for other removable media you may add in the future, I found this page through Google.

If you are lazy (like me) cut and paste the following text into notepad, save it with a filename ending in .reg, and double-click that file. The resulting registry change should turn off autorun for all removable drives. (restart may be required.) To reverse this, simply change the ending 95 to a 91.

-----------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:00000095
posted by JigSawMan at 12:13 PM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]

TweakUI can also control autoplay as well as other obnoxious window features.
posted by chairface at 5:30 PM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]