Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft To Disable Autorun

Posted by timothy on from the mounting-is-fine-but-opening-is-obnoxious dept.

jchrisos writes "Microsoft is planning to disable autorun in the next Release Candidate of Windows 7 and future updates to Windows XP and Vista. In order to maintain a 'balance between security and usability,' non-writable media will maintain its current behavior however. In any case, if it means no more autorun on flash drives, removable hard drives and network shares, that is definitely a step in the right direction. Will be interesting to see what malware creators do to get around this ..."

2 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's done right in Ubuntu by EvanED · · Score: 5, Informative

    If I insert a CD with autorun files on it or it has an autorun folder, I am prompted that this disc has software on it designed to run automatically, and I am asked what I would like to do about it.

    That's what Vista does too... I actually really like that behavior. It's almost as convenient as autoplay is, but without the security risk. (Well, for good users.)

  2. Re:Erm.....What the hell? by adisakp · · Score: 5, Informative

    As someone who likes autorun, my reaction to this is "yeah, because I like doing work myself that a computer is good at".

    I think Vista's "always autoplay, never autorun" (if I got those names right) scheme works really well.

    Autorun does work really well... at installing rootkits on your machine from Sony/BMG CD's.