AutoPlay or AutoRun, as it’s often called, can be very useful in starting up your removable media. The problem with the AutoPlay is that it will run any program, including viruses. I don’t think I need to tell you that this is a bad thing.

A simple solution to disabling AutoPlay is to simply hold down the Shift Key on your keyboard while inserting the removable media. The shift key will automatically disable AutoPlay for that instance. Although useful, holding down the Shift Key does have its drawback, most obviously, forgetting to press it.

If you would like to permanently disable AutoPlay, there are a number of options available including tampering with your system registry. Possibly the easiest way that I’ve found is by using Microsoft Tweak UI. Microsoft Tweak UI is a very useful and powerful little program that gives you access over many components on your Windows OS, including AutoPlay.

One word of caution, before using Tweak UI please note that Microsoft doesn’t support it. Don’t get carried away with tweaking your system. Tweak only one program at a time and check the results constantly for any strange PC behavior. Remember, if you don’t know what it means don’t touch it.

After you’ve installed Tweak UI here are the steps needed to disable auto-run.

1. Start TweakUI
2. Expand the My Computer menu
3. Expand the AutoPlay menu
4. Select the Drives menu. You will see a bunch of icons with check marks beside them. Look for the ones that have a CD on top and remove the check mark and click Apply. These refer to your CD/DVD and or CD/DVD Writer and are usually the letters D: and or E:
   
5. Select the Types menu and remove the check mark from the the Enable Autoplay for CD and DVD drives. Click Apply.
   
6. Click OK. From now on, your disks will not AutoPlay

You can get Microsoft Tweak UI here -> http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUIPowertoySetup_ia64.exe