June 20, 2010

Disabling Autorun in Windows XP Home Edition

I've created a topic about Avoid Being Infected Through USB Flash Drive. Part of the tips is disabling AutoRun function of Windows. Unfortunately that tip is not applicable for Windows XP Home Edition.

But let's party all users of Windows XP Home Edition!

I recently found a way to do the trick. Here's an alternative:

Use Tweak UI.

Steps:
  1. Download Tweak UI by clicking on the link above.
  2. Install Tweak UI.
  3. Open Tweak UI (Start > Powertoys for Windows XP > Tweak UI)
  4. Click the "+" sign before My Computer on the Tree List on the left side of the window.
  5. Click the "+" sign before AutoPlay.
  6. Under AutoPlay, click Drives.
  7. Uncheck all drives that you want AutoRun to be disabled.
  8. CLick the OK button on the lower portion of the window.
And there you have it! You have just put your computer's security to a higher level.

*Note: You need Administrative Rights to perform this.

Running the application as Admin using the Run as. . . won't work. In able to do the tweak on a Limited Account, temporary change the account type into Computer Administrator before running the application. After that, you may change the account type back into a Limited Account.