
How do I fix autoplay on Windows XP SP2?I've newly upgraded to XP Pro/SP2 with all of the latest updates. The feature that always asks what I want to do when I insert removeable media (USB or ZIP disk) is frustrating and un-teachable. It either won't learn when I tell it to or the option isn't there. My colleague Chris Buechler has certainly seen this one many a time, so I'll let him help you out here. Chris explains: "The owner of the company at my previous employer was a digital photography nut, and had this problem at least every other month or so!" Windows contains a feature known as "autorun" that causes certain actions to be taken when you insert removable media. Unfortunately, Windows XP seems to like to repeatedly break this functionality on some systems. Luckily, there is an easy fix available from Microsoft. They provide a utility called "Autofix.exe", as described in this knowledge base article. While the bottom of the above article claims this was fixed in XP Service Pack 2, we can attest that some of us have used this utility ourselves on SP2 to fix the exact problem you describe. To download Autofix, go to Microsoft's download area, type Then log off and log back onto your computer (restart it to be on the safe side) and it should work again. This has worked numerous times for Chris. The only "gotcha" he's run into is forgetting to log off after running the utility, in which case the change does not take effect until you finally do remember to log out and log in again. Alternatively, if you'd rather use something not from Microsoft, here are a couple of useful tools that can help you quickly fix the problem, both ingeniously called "Autoplay Repair": • Autoplay Repair from Softpedia That should get you back and working!
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Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. I have XP PRO_SP2. When I click on a dropdown menu It closes when I move my mouse and will not let me select anything. Posted by: D Sauvageot at May 8, 2006 3:04 PMHi, Autofix.exe solved the problem. Your website was the only one that hit the nail on the head. Steve Posted by: Steve Smith at December 13, 2007 3:11 PMI have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
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