Disabling the Action Prompt on Inserting Memory Drives
All XP users are familiar with the Autoplay dialog that comes up whenever we insert a new drive into the PC. This happens whenever we insert flash drives, CDs, DVDs, portable hard drives, memory cards, etc. Depending on the type of files contained in the drive, you are prompted with different ‘Actions’ you can take – such as play media files with WMP, open folder to view the files, etc. However, in most cases (such as when you are inserting a camera memory card or a CD) you might want to do nothing at all.
This article will tell you how to change XP settings so that you do not have to face this annoying dialog every time you insert a PCMCIA memory card into the PC. You can do either of the following two things.
- Enabling ‘Take no action’ from the Pop-up Window
- Insert the memory card into your PC and wait for that annoying dialog to pop-up.
- Single-click the Take no action option.
- Below the list of actions, there must be (usually) a check-box that says Always do the selected action. Tick the check-box.
- Click on OK.
This should ideally solve your problem. However, many users have reported that the Always do the selected option check-box is not there in many cases. In such an eventuality, you can go for the following workaround.
- Enabling ‘Take no action’ option from drive Properties menu
- Insert the memory card into your PC.
- Cancel the pop-up that shows up.
- Open My Computer.
- Locate the drive that you inserted and right-click on it and then select Properties.
- In the Properties dialog, select the Autoplay tab.
- The Autoplay tab will have two options under the Actions heading – Select an action to perform, and Prompt me each time to choose an action. Typically, the latter option is enabled.
- Select the Select an action to perform, and in the options that are there under that field, select Take no action.
- Click on Apply, and then OK.