A lot of times on a Windows Operating system, you may encounter that your drive doesn’t open when you double click on it, instead it opens up an “OPEN WITH” Dialog Box something like this

It is really annoying when you see this especially when you are working on something this shows up.

Reason computer drive opens show up an OPEN WITH dialog Box

When you double click on a Hard Disk Drive or  USB there is a File that run Automatically, called the AUTORUN.INF.

What is AUTORUN.INF

Autorun.inf is the primary instruction file associated with the Autorun function. Autorun.inf itself is a simple text-based configuration file that tells the operating system which executable to start, which icon to use, and which additional menu commands to make available. In other words, autorun.inf tells Windows how to deal open the presentation and treat the contents of the CD.

The entire sequence is initiated when the “disk change notifcation” polling discovers a new disk in the CD or DVD ROM drive. Then, if the “Auto insert notification” feature is enabled (it is by default), Windows checks in the new disk’s root directory for the existence of an “autorun.inf” file. If found, Windows then reads and follows the specific instructions this file defines. If no autorun.inf file is found, then Windows refers to the new disk by its serial number and executes the default actions associated with the (data or audio) content on the disk.

The Autorun.inf file defines the following:

	The process or application that will automatically run when a disk is inserted
	Optionally, one can define the process or application that will run for specific Operating environments.
	The icon that will represent your application’s CD or DVD when the drive is viewed with My Computer or Explorer.
	Menu commands displayed when the user right-clicks the CD-ROM icon from My Computer or Explorer.

Now sometimes a traditional virus takes over this file and updates it with a malicious function, so every time you open the Drive the virus code runs!

So what do we do.

Well here is a trick to stop the OPEN WITH dialog Box to appear

There are 2 ways to it

1. Automatic: Just download the patches from Microsoft and you can be selective on choosing which content to autorun

Download links
The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:

Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB971029)

Windows6.0-KB971029-x86.msu

Update for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems (KB971029)

Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB971029)

Windows6.0-KB971029-x64.msu

Update for Windows Vista (KB971029)

Windows6.0-KB971029-x86.msu

Update for Windows Vista for x64-based Systems (KB971029)

Windows6.0-KB971029-x64.msu

Update for Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition (KB971029)

WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB971029-x64-ENU.exe

Update for Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems (KB971029)

WindowsServer2003-KB971029-ia64-ENU.exe

Update for Windows Server 2003 (KB971029)

WindowsServer2003-KB971029-x86-ENU.exe

Update for Windows XP (KB971029)

WindowsXP-KB971029-x86-ENU.exe

2. Manual(preferred):

Open command prompt ( Go to Start >> RUN and type  CMD)

Go to the drive. (“cd e:” – use your drive letter )

Go to the root directory (cd \  )

then change the attributes of the autorun file.

here is how type:

1. attrib -r -s -h autorun.inf

-h = remove Hidden property
-r = remove Read only property
-s = remove System file property

2. del autorun.inf

3. Restart your computer

and you are sorted.

Please share this post, it is as simple as this, you don’t need to call a computer expert or have your computer formatted just for this silly reason

Dhawal D