Quick fixes for Windows-Part 6

“Whenever I connect the external hard drives and flash drives to my PC, I see Autoplay feature working just as it does in CD-ROMs. What if malware gets on one of the devices and if Autoplay gives it a path onto my system?”

Quick Fix: Best option I can suggest you here is to disable Autoplay feature for all of the system’s drives.

If you are using XP, you can press Windows-R and then type the command gpedit.msc, and then press Enter. Now as you can see the tree pane on the left, select Local Computer Policy\ Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\System. Now you can scroll in the right pane and then double click Turn off Autoplay. Click Enabled in the Turn off Autoplay Properties dialog box. Once done, select All drives from drop-down list. Click OK.

Coming to Vista, do the same process by pressing Windows-R, then type gpedit.msc and press Enter. When prompted click on Continue. In the tree pane on the left, navigate to and select Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\AutoPlay Policies. Double click on Turn off Autoplay to turn off. Now click Enabled and then OK. Double click the Default behavior for AutoRun. Next, click Enabled and then select Do not execute any autorun commands in the resulting drop-down list.

Once done with the process, click OK. This step sometimes causes problems on some machines. If you deal with any kind of problem, return back to the above settings and select Disable option. Alternatively you can use Microsoft’s Tweak UI for free.

“Doing things from keyboard looks faster to me than using mouse. I want to launch items in taskbar’s Quick Launch toolbar without reaching for mouse.”

Quick Fix: When using XP, keyboard shortcuts can be assigned either to items on the Desktop or to entries on the Start menu. The Start Menu is fine. Now right-click the Start button and then select Open or Explore whichever you wish to. Next, Double-click the Programs folder. You need to keep things organized, so right-click in the same window and choose New, Folder. Name the folder ‘Keyboard’ or similar, and then press Enter. Double-click that folder, right-click it and drag items from Quick Launch bar into this folder. Not all at once, one at a time. Now choose Copy Here. Right-click each copied shortcut and select Properties. With the highlighted Shortcut tab, click in the ‘Shortcut key’ box and press the keys which you’ll use to launch the program; they must begin with Ctrl-Alt, Ctrl-Shift, or a function key (F1 through F12 on the keyboard). Click OK.

If using Vista, the system automatically assigns Windows-key shortcuts to Quick Launch items based on their order in the toolbar .Press Windows-1 to launch the first item, press Windows-2 for next item and so on. If you would like to change the keyboard shortcut for an item, then drag it within the toolbar to change the order in which it appears.

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December 14, 2007 | Filed Under Software, Tips n Tricks