Auto run vs auto play same thing?

[Melelina]

Is Auto Run in XP the same thing as Auto Play? I know how to disable Auto
Run in the Registry. Will disabling Auto Play in Tweak UI accomplish the
same thing? Or is Auto Run different from Auto Play? Can I tell less
knowledgeable users to use Tweak UI to disable Auto Run? It's called Auto
Play in Tweak UI so I am confused. A Google search finds an article quoting
Microsoft that in XP Auto Run is NOT the same as Auto Play and you must
disable Auto Run in the Registry to stop the Sony Root kit from installing
or any auto initiation of anything. However, a user just posted to a thread
on this subject at dslreports and said they used Tweak UI to disable Auto
Play and that action stops CDs/DVDs from initiating when inserted.

So, one article quoting Microsoft as saying that you must disable Auto Run
in the Registry and saying Auto Play in XP is NOT the same thing as Auto Run
and a user saying that disabling Auto Play is all that is necessary.

 

[R. McCarty]

Autorun.Inf is a module that initiates action, such as setup/Install.

AutoPlay is a function of XP that examines media to determine the
content and the action to take for that content.

Autorun.Inf will supersede AutoPlay's action for the content.
Just use Tweak-UI's facility to turn off AutoPlay on all drives.

 

[frodo]

the reg entry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom\AutoRun

is really the "auto insert notification" setting; it should have a value
of 1. If this is set to 0, then no software in the system is "informed"
when the disk is changed, and as a result AutoPlay is effectively turned
off. HOWEVER this is not a good thing, as Explorer is also not informed
of the new disk, and it may continue to display the previous disk's
contents, and some not-so-good errors can occur. Same is true for things
like media player and itunes. So, leave it set to 1, you really DO want
the system to detect and announce new disks, you just don't want them to
AutoPlay.

Using TweakUI to turn off AutoPlay, both the "drives" and the "types",
will stop AutoPlay 99% of the time. Disabling the Shell Hardware
Detection service will take care of the remaining 1%, and is optional (and
has other minor side effects).

There is still a gotcha tho: if the cd in the drive has an autoplay.ini
file at its root, then the right-click default action for that drive will
be "Autoplay" instead of just "Open"; so, if you double-click the drive
icon (out of habit/reflex) it WILL Autoplay! There seems to be no way to
"fix" this (short of a patch/change to explorer.exe - MS, are you
listening? Do you care?).

BTW, if you leave Autoplay enabled, but hold down SHIFT when a disk is
inserted and detected by explorer, it won't autoplay. Hold it down for
about 10 seconds as the cd drawer is closed and the disk is first read.