USB drives when they are inserted haven’t really had the autorun.inf file fully processed since early versions of Windows XP, and instead the USB autorun launching is either included in the Autoplay function or ignored altogether as happens in Vista and 7. You can still get your Windows DVD or game CD to launch automatically or via double clicking on the drive icon. The Autorun functionality has been reduced in more recent versions of Windows for security purposes and in Windows 7 the autorun.inf file is almost completely ignored for all media except CD’s and DVD’s. When Windows detects the presence of the file, it reads it and looks for the line to auto launch an executable or file, and if found, launches the program. This function is known as Autorun and has been around since Windows 95 and is simply a small text file called autorun.inf that sits in the root folder of the inserted device.

Unfortunately, in recent times times the function has been used for more malicious purposes and has become quite a common way to spread and infect machines with viruses, worms and trojans. Whenever you insert a CD, DVD, Floppy disk, portable hard drive or USB stick into your computer, the Windows operating system has the ability to automatically launch a program directly from the media or run a game installer etc.

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Usb autorun windows 7