Autorun virus are widely seen these days here right in USB thumb drives, external hard disks, PCs and Laptops. People find it very difficult to remove autorun virus. Well I must admit that it is very difficult for a non IT person to work out for a solution for those viruses because they disable almost everything the task manager, registry, folder options and sometimes access to the internet as well. Before going into how to deal with these viruses, I would first like you guys to make sure your PC is well protected to avoid these viruses and malware.

Follow my guide and I can assure you that this will help you prevent autorun viruses to a great extent.

Update Your Protection Software

Well most of you use a paid antivirus I guess like Norton or McAfee. If yes them make sure that they are updated always. I see about atleast 20 viruses, spyware and malware definitions daily when I update so I recommend to keep things updated regularly. For those who can’t buy these we have many freebies for the rescue.

Disable Autorun for External Drives

External media like USB and CD/DVD Drives make use of autorun.inf file to start an application as soon as the drive is initiated. Most of the malware programs create a copy of this file to auto start themselves on the clients PC. And we never don’t need this feature do we? (Only if you are damn lazy to click your mouse)

To get to the configuration screen for this setting, go to Start Menu \ Run and type in:

gpedit.msc

In Group Policy window. You should select Administrative Templates \ System in the tree view:

You will see an item in the right side pane called “Turn off Autoplay”

Double click the item, and set the radio button to Enabled, and change the “Turn off Autoplay on” to All Drives.

Autorun Virus Removal Tools and Anti Spyware Tools

There are many Autorun Virus Removal Tools and malware removal tools available now for free. Personally I recommend these (based on their priority how much useful they are)

Super Anti Spyware (freeware)

Unhack Me (fully functional Evaluation)

Autorun Eater (Free)

Icons Arrangement

I arrange my icons by “Type” and then “sort them by groups” so I don’t click an application thinking it to be folder. Simple yet effective. Isn’t it ?

Right Click to Explore

Make it a habit to Right Click and Explore rather than double clicking the Drive Icon so that you don’t autorun a drive explicitly.

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