CDs or DVDs won’t autoplay?

I ran into a little problem on a client’s computer recently and I thought I’d share the accumulated research I had done to fix it.  I won’t go into details, so this post if probably just for you nerds out there, but I hope it helps someone!

This is the complete list of potential fixes that I found for a Windows XP based computer that refuses to autoplay any CDs or DVDs. You won’t need to run ALL of these, nor can I guarantee these items won’t break something, ESPECIALLY if done improperly!  Note that some registry keys listed are specific to Windows XP.

  • Run the Microsoft Autoplay Repair Wizard, if it doesn’t find and fix problems then it does a debug mode!  You may need to run this more than once as well.
  • Set the following:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
    \CDRom\Autorun = 1 (may also be in  CURRENT_USER  keys)
  • Set the following: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
    \Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun = 91 (hex)
  • Set the following: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
    \policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun = 91 (hex)
  • Search the registry for all NoDriveTypeAutorun values and NoDriveAutoRun values and delete them
  • CDRAutoRun = 1 (or delete it)
  • Set the following: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\allocatecdroms = 0 (also current_user?)
  • Set the following: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom\Autorun = 1
  • Delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
    \IniFileMapping\Autorun.inf
  • Search the registry for all “HonorAutorunSetting” and delete them
  • Set the following: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
    \Policies\Explorer\”NoSaveSettings”=dword:00000000
  • Check for CD restrictions in Group Policy Editor:  Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
  • Uninstall RealPlayer
  • Use TweakUI 2.10 to reset Autoplay settings
  • Use msconfig
  • Search www.adaptec.com for aspichk
  • Run Doug Knox’s XP_CD-DVD-Fix.exe

Good luck and let me know if this helped you!

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