How to Disable the Autorun Windows Feature
AutoRun is a Windows feature that will automatically launch programs or applications when you insert a USB drive, CD or DVD into your computer. This is a useful feature if you regularly use USB drives or CDs to transfer files from one place to another on your computer.
The Autorun feature works by checking any device or media that is connected to your computer for a special file that instructs the OS to perform an automatic action. This could be launching the default media player, opening the file in File Explorer or launching an application that manages the file.
You can disable the AutoRun feature using a Windows Registry entry. To do this, create a new DWORD type value called NoDriveTypeAutoRun in the Registry Editor and set it to hexadecimal 95. This is the same value that is used for the DWORD type "DriveDriveTypeAutoRun" under Windows XP and Windows NT4, and hexadecimal B5 for other versions of Microsoft's operating systems.
In addition, you can also modify the registry settings for CD-ROM drives. In particular, you can add a bit to the data value, which tells the system not to initiate AutoRun on a CD-ROM drive when it is inserted.
There are also several other ways to check the software that is running in your PC's background, which can help you identify malware if you know what to look for. The Windows Task Manager, for example, shows you which programs are currently active and provides a variety of options to disable or stop them. You can also use an external program, like HijackThis, which will scan your PC's process list and provide a comprehensive log of every application that is running.