You
may want to block USB mass storage device to disallow the unauthorized
use of pendrives or you may want to unblock USB mass storage device to
get access (most of the case in college’s net lab). Well, this can be
done by a simple registry tweak. Before doing so, I recommend taking a
backup of the regustry because playing with registry can be harmful for
your OS
The
advantage of this is, you restrict users from copying and transferring
sensitive data to and from the computer. This is mostly a necessity in:
offices to protect intellectual property and cybercafe / public browsing
centers to prevent users from knowingly or unknowingly infecting the
system with viruses.Here’s how you can disable USB storage device drive access in windows :
1>Click on "Start –> Run –> Type regedit and hit Enter.”
2>Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor”
3> Select the key UsbStor and double click on the Start value, which can be found in the right pane.
4>
In Value data part, put 4 (numeric value four), if you want to disable
USB storage and put in 3 (numeric value 3), if you want to enable USB
storage on your computer.
The
change will be effective immediately, however sometimes a reboot may be
required. This hack will ensure that all the USB storage devices are
disabled / blocked or enabled according to your choice.