It is sometimes a good choice to disable USB drives and still use other USB hardware. This is especially true for computers and notebooks that are publically accessible from time to time. So, to disable USB Drives you simply fire up regedit and browse to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
The value START determines if USB drives are disabled or not, if the value is set to 4 USB drives are disabled, if it is set to 3 they are enabled.
source: intelliadmin
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I use Win XP HE and there is no UsbStor in the registry located where you indicated.
John, what does HE mean ?
My Windows XP version has this key and I was able to edit it accordingly.
Just go to
http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/04/disable-usb-drives.html
And they have a program that will do it for you
why don´t you say we have a program intelliadmin ;)
If you manage a corporate network, full no disabling USB ports might pose a problem. Windows by default has minimal controls of USB ports (or firewire or bluetooth) for that matter. Sometimes you need to grant certain users read access to certain devices. There are software products like DeviceWall that allow you provide granular access controls allowing the admin to decide which devices users can connect to and if they have read/write access to those systems. This can help secure your endpoints, but also allow certain users to use those devices that they need to do legitmate work and even encrypt the data that is written to USB flash drives by default.
Martin, HE = Home Edition as opposed to the Professional edition. Was yours the home or pro version?
Ah, mine is the Pro Edition.