Microsoft is going to partially disable autorun in Windows 7. Of course they couldn't bring them selves to disable it all the way, CD-ROM drives will still autorun, but USB flash drives will not.
Me, I have disabled autorun with a hand patch to my registry. On earlier versions of Windows you could turn autorun off in Device Manager. But Microsoft loved autorun so much that XP makes it harder to kill. You now have to run regedit and do a hand patch to the registry. User friendly that is.
Autorun is that feature that makes music CD's start to play for just inserting the CD into the drive. It also makes software CD's start to install hands off. It is a gaping security hole in Windows. Autorun will load and execute any kind of code off the CD or flash drive for just inserting the media into the drive or USB slot. Put a virus on a CD and infect every machine the CD ever sees. Sony used autorun to infect user's machines with an anti copy root kit to prevent copying CD's. Malware can spread by copying itself to USB flash drives.
If Microsoft actually cared about Windows security, they would remove autorun completely. Apparently they still love it too much to kill it all the way.
Computers work just fine without autorun. Users just have to click on the CD or flash drive to make it play or run. Much safer that way. I'll click on a million CD's to play them rather than autorun just one ugly piece of malware that eats my hard drive.
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