Steps For Disabling Autorun In XP And Vista

Windows operating systems are equipped with a default feature called autorun or autoplay. This feature enables your system to detect any external device with data or files when it is connected to the PC. Thereupon, the system will read and boot the files in the device. Experts say that autorun causes the spread of viruses to the PC as the data in the device is automatically accessed by the system, prior to running a virus scan. If you do not want the autorun feature in your PC, you can disable it. In this article, we review the steps of disabling autorun in Windows Vista and XP operating systems respectively. More information on this can be derived from Windows help page.

Instructions (Windows Vista)

• Turn on your PC and navigate to the Start button.
• Enter gpedit.msc in the search box, and hit the Enter button to proceed. If you do not have administrator privileges, you may be prompted to provide the administrator password to proceed. Enter the password and press the Allow button to continue.
• You will now be taken to the Group Policy Editor settings. Go the section titled Computer Configuration and click Administrative Templates and Windows Components to expand them.
• Select the option titled Autoplay Policies.
• After that, go to the pane labelled Details and locate Default Behaviour for Autorun. Double-click it to continue.
• Press the Enable button and choose the option that says Do not execute any autorun commands in the default autorun behaviour box to disable Autorun on all drives. Press the OK button to save the changes you have made in the Group Policy Editor settings.
• Restart your computer to let the changes take effect.

The steps for disabling Autorun in XP are slightly different. Follow the below steps.

• Go to the Start button and select Run.
• Enter Gpedit.msc in the type field and press the OK button to continue.
• Go to Computer Configuration tab and press Administrative Templates to expand it.
• Choose System and go to settings.
• Locate the option titled Turn Off Autoplay and right-click it.
• Select Properties from the dropdown menu and press the Enabled button.
• After that, choose the option that says All drives in the Turn off Autoplay box to disable Autorun on "All drives.
• Press OK to save the changes you have made and restart your PC.

You have learnt how to disable autorun in Windows Vista and XP. To know how to disable autorun in Windows 7 or any other operating systems, contact Windows help line.