Playing with AutoRun Files

Apart from causing trouble in opening drives on your PC, the Autorun files can be used to make your windows experience more personal and enjoyable. How about having your picture displayed on your screen on top of a drive everytime you open My Computer ?

To do this, you would first need to use a software to create an icon file... ie files having an extension ".ico". You may use Microangelo Toolset. A free trial version is available at http://www.download.com/Microangelo-Toolset/3000-2195_4-10001673.html


Now, having created the icon file, follow the following steps:

1. Create a folder named "autorun" in the drive where you want the pic to be shown and put the ico file (say "pic1.ico") in the folder.
2. Go to Start --> Run
3. Type "cmd"
4. Now go to the drive of which you want the icon to be changed. For example, for putting your pic on F drive, type "F:" and press enter.
5. Now open the AutoRun file of the drive by typing "autorun.inf".




6. This should open the file in notepad. Now add a statement to the file:  "icon=autorun\pic1.ico"



7. Save and exit.
8. Restart your computer.

Tushar Bhatia (tushar1988@gmail.com)

Autorun Problems

Have you ever plugged in a removable harddisk or a pen drive expecting Autoplay to give you options to copy music, open folder etc... and kept waiting till you realised that it wasn't going to come and you would have to go to my computer and open it from there? And/Or then found an error on double clicking on the drive saying "Cannot open the drive" before giving you the impossible task of choosing a program which can OPEN A DRIVE!!!

Don't worry... you are not alone.. this problem with removable drives is as common as Windows on PC's!
This and similar problems have a simple solution. All these have a basic cause --- absent or corrupt Autorun file.

The solution :

1) Open notepad.
2) Write: [autorun]
3) Save the file with name : "autorun.inf"



4) Open the infected drive by putting the drive letter followed by a ":" in the address bar or in the run command from the start menu.
5) Copy the file "autorun.inf" in the root folder of the infected drive (internal or removable)
6) Replace if any other file with the same name exists.
7) Restart your computer (for internal drives) or remove and replug your removable drive (in case of external devices)

and everything should be fine again!!!

If you are still unable to solve your problem, feel free to contact me.

Tushar Bhatia (tushar1988@gmail.com)