User:Carveone/Sandbox

sandbox notes for autorun:

google: windows 7 and autorun for info: technet and msdn blogs

AutoRun

AutoRun, and its companion feature AutoPlay, are components of the Microsoft Windows operating system that dictate which actions the system takes when a drive is mounted.

AutoRun is a specification which was introduced in Windows 95 with AutoPlay officially introduced in Windows XP. As developers often used the former term and users the latter, there can be some confusion about which term refers to what functionality.

When a CD-ROM is inserted into a CD-ROM drive, AutoRun is the technology that starts an install program, or plays audio content. AutoPlay is the feature that can detect content on the CD-ROM, or indeed any removable media, and give the user options based on the media type of files found.

AutoRun and AutoPlay are sometimes both used to refer to the initiating action, the one that detects and starts reading from discovered media. This is reflected in Windows Policy settings that are named AutoPlay that change registry entries name AutoRun. This wikipedia entry will solely use AutoRun to refer to the initiating action.

AutoRun

AutoRun, a feature of Windows Explorer (actually shell32) introduced in Windows 95, enables media and devices to launch programs by use of commands listed in a file called "autorun.inf".

Primarily used on install CD-ROMs, the applications called are usually application installers. The autorun.inf file can also specify an icon which will represent the device visually in Explorer along with other advanced features.

Previous to Windows XP Service Pack 2, the autorun.inf on a drives of type DRIVE_REMOVABLE (see below) was not read. Thus AutoRun's autorun.inf capabilities were restricted to CD-ROM drives and fixed disk drives.

However U3 enabled flash drives, by emulating a CD-ROM unit, could cause Windows to execute commands from the autorun.inf found on the emulated CD-ROM. Devices like the Huawei E220 HSDPA modem use this method to autoinstall drivers for the modem itself.

On windows XP, AutoRun initiation was enabled for removable devices and used solely to initiate the AutoPlay dialog without reading autorun.inf.

Windows XP SP2 introduced autorun.inf capabilities for removable drives (9) but handled the feature of automatically running programs as a display item within the AutoPlay dialog (See autorun.inf:action).