Comments on: Write Protect and Disable USB Drive

By: CY Observer

CY Observer — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:13:17 +0000

“You should also make clear that once you do enable the write protect, it’s only on THAT PC. It’s not write protected anywhere you take it…which is what people are truly looking for.”
Totally agree with gmo entry, April 8th, 2009 04:12.
When using USB Write Protector it only works in the PC that it was set, the USB drive will not be write protected in any other PC. What is needed is a way to actually write protect the portable USB drive itself.

By: Marco

Marco — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:39:07 +0000

The tips in this article are useless, it only helps spreading viruses from supposedly infected machines in your company to the outside, but not the other way around, and this is what most company want to prevent.
The best method is to disable autorun, see http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA09-020A.html for more details.

@yeyet
Be careful, the policy trick only works as expected after you installed http://support.microsoft.com/kb/967715 from M$.
Without this patch, with Vista it might even have the opposite effect of enabling autorun.

By: yeyet

yeyet — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:14:37 +0000

One of the main problems with USB flashdrives is the autorun feature built in Windows. To greatly reduce the risk of infection from a flashdrive, we just need to turn off autorun.

Here is how I turn off autorun:
1. Click on Start->Run
2. Type gpedit.msc then press ENTER
3. In the Group Policy, Expand the following:
Local Computer Policy -> Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates
4. Under Administrative Templates, click on System. Dont expand it, just click on it
5. On the right-pane, scroll down and look for Turn Off Autoplay. Double-click on it.
6. Select Enabled option, then select All Drives from the combobox.
7. Press OK button.

That should turn off the annoying autorun for good.

By: gmo

gmo — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:12:41 +0000

The problem with the above utilities is that it requires a small installation package on the PC itself, so unless that is installed you cannot write protect your device. Many users don’t want to load yet another mini app.

You should also make clear that once you do enable the write protect, it’s only on THAT PC. It’s not write protected anywhere you take it…which is what people are truly looking for.

But, those are some nice apps if it fits your need.