Operating system such as Microsoft Windows has the autorun enabled by default. When you try to connect external drives from your computer this usually prompts a user Interface wherein you are given a choice to explore the folders inside it or you will use installed software on your operating system such as windows media player. One good thing about this is that you will no longer navigate to any software and go to the external drives directory and manually open the files. This is one great feature that Microsoft(especially Windows XP), but this is also a very big threat to the security of you your computer. Most Virus especially worms today have much improved with the use of an autorun file that will automatically execute the virus files upon connecting the device in your computer.

To prevent this from happening you need to disable autorun on your computer. And how do you do that? Its really simple and anybody who uses windows XP can do this even my 8 year old cousin can do it. Here are the steps you need to do so that you can disable the autorun in your computer.

Open the gpedit.msc application and this can be done by going to the Start >> Run. Then type gpedit.msc and press enter. gpedit.msc is a built in application of windows xp which can be found in your system32 folder. gpedit.msc is a group policy which controls access to your computer‘s applications and other stuff. after opening gpedit.msc you should open the under User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> System the on the right side you can see Turn Off Autoplay. Open it and the enable the policy and set it to all drives. By then autorun will be disabled every time you connect an external device on your computer. Below is the image on how to disable autorun by using the gpedit.msc application.

disable autorun

Disabling autorun on your computer is one big help especially when you use external devices and connect it from one PC to the other. This will prevent computer virus from running on your computer without any of your permission. Aside from disabling your computers autorun, the most important thing to do is always keep your antivirus up to date. This will surely prevent your computer from any attacks.