How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons
By Asad on Sep 21 2008 33 Comments Your email Join 35,000+ other readers
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Do you want that a certain program should run when you insert your USB flash drive? Or do you want to add a custom icon for your flash drive? If the answer to any of the question is yes, then you have come to the right place. It is possible to auto run the programs and applications from your removable USB flash drive like the autorun feature in CD/DVD drives. The autorun.inf file is the key to getting your USB drive to perform certain actions automatically and customize its look in My Computer. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on how this can be done.
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Note: Autorun feature does not work in Windows 7 any more, Microsoft has disabled it due to security reasons. But this feature works fine in Windows Vista, Windows XP, and older OS.

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Basic Autorun.inf Structure

The autorun.inf file is a simple text file that can be opened up in any text editor (e.g. notepad). It always starts with a section header of: [autorun] Below this header is a list of different options. Each of these options is in the following format: option=value

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-autorun-programs-fr...

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Setting Up AutoPlay Options

Autoplay allows you to set up what file is run when the USB drive is plugged into the computer. There are two options that work in concurrence with AutoPlay. The first is would add the this to your autorun.inf file: open=MyProgram.exe The second option that we add is the message the user is prompted with. To set this, we use the action option. open which specifies the program that you can run automatically with AutoPlay. So, if we wanted to run a program called MyProgram.exe, you

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action=MyProgram Open Program

When your autorun file is done, save it as autorun.inf. Once the autorun.inf file is saved, the flash drive autoplay will look something like this:

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

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Customize USB Flash Drives Icon

To create a custom icon for your USB drive, use the icon option. Set it to the name of the icon file.

For example, if you had an icon on the root of the USB drive called sun.ico and you wanted this to be the icon that showed up for the USB drive, you would enter: icon=sun.ico You can also use some other applications icon by specifying icon=Photo.exe This is valid as long as Photo.exe is available on the root of the USB drive.

Label Your Flash Drive

If you want your USB drive to display a specific name other than the drive label created when it was formatted, then use the label option. For example, if I wanted to call my drive Asad Drive, I would add this to my autorun.inf file: label=Asad Drive

Now, when you look at your USB drive in My Computer, it will say Asad Drive by the drive letter.

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-autorun-programs-fr...

Autorun Files Or Web Addresses

If you wanted to view a file on your USB drive in the default application instead of running a program on the drive, you can substitute the shellexecute=Readme.txt open option for the shellexecute option. For e.g

if you wanted to open up a website www.google.com in the default web browser, you could use the following: shellexecute=http://www.google.com

Now start customizing your USB drive now. Dont forget to leave a comment.

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

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33 comments

Arjun

3 years ago Edit

Is there a way to Run the Presentation(ppt) in full screen, directly when the USB is connected. Without any button clicks. Thanks
1 votes M Kynman

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2 months ago Edit

is there anyway of removing preset options or by using the inf file stopping the autoplay coming up and just running the program? :
0 votes Mike brooks

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a year ago Edit

This is a note to Promo USB Developers: It appears that the autorun.inf file is useless in computers running Win XP SP3 or higher. Recent Microsoft updates have kept the autoplay feature, but disabled the autorun feature in XP SP3 and Vista. It is also set this way by default in Windows 7. If the user is motivated to do so, there are work-arounds. However, promotional USB developers must keep this in mind as a statistically large portion of users will no longer be able to use their USB drives as effectively. I am putting this here so that it may save you time trying to find a solution when this happens to you. Hope this helps. This was originally posted on my tech blog Priceless Geek. I will also update this blog if I find a valid solution other than ensuring the root directory of your USB only contains a file that say CLICKME. The Microsoft KB article that discuss it is here: http://support.microsoft.com/k...
0 votes suren prasad 0 votes cmhafiz

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a year ago Edit

how to flash drive insite in computer and silent installation of exe

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a year ago Edit

X jadi pun
0 votes Dylan Hogue 0 votes Jonathan 0 votes jack

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a year ago Edit

not useless, it is posible to run a windows xp or vista emulator which should allow you to use this

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2 years ago Edit

Problem: Suppose there is a stubborn autorun.inf file that refuses to be deleted or replaced?

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2 years ago Edit

BS, this is useless. Read into the fine print, this won't work on Windows 7 machines for a reason.
0 votes MM

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2 years ago Edit

Hi! And Help! Thanks for the tips. Need help with.... I can launch the program OK but cannot get my PDF file to open the code that works is: [autorun] open=acrobat.exe action acrobat open program But what/where do I add to get the filename.pdf to open right up?

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How To Autorun Programs From USB Flash Drive And Add Custom Icons

http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-autorun-programs-fr...

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