Windows 7 Explorer AutoPlay notifications - how to disable for certain devices?

Question

Under Windows XP, it was possible to disable notifications from Explorer on inserting certain devices (for example, your iPhone).

Under Windows 7, this seems to no longer be the case.

I want to disable the popup "what do you want to do" when I plugin my iPhone - but leave it active for other devices.

Is that possible? If so, how?

Answer 1

Check out Start->Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->AutoPlay

Windows 7's AutoPlay is content-specific and device-type-specific instead of just device-specific.

They DO have a "Devices" section at the bottom of the mentioned AutoPlay setup screen, but "Removable Disks" (aka "volume devices") don't reflect there, as it's for more-specific devices (like, hopefully, your iPhone). "Volume device" AutoPlay is determined by the content on the volume.

What would keep a device from appearing under "Devices" in AutoPlay?

If you have connected a volume device to your computer (for example, a USB flash drive or external hard drive), that device will not appear in the Devices section of AutoPlay. AutoPlay only lists non-volume devices (for example, some digital cameras, video cameras, and phones). This is because these devices don't use a standard file system and AutoPlay cannot browse the contents of these devices to see what types of files they contain.

More info here.

Hope that helps...

Answer 2

You asked this question 6 and a half years ago, but it took me that long to find an answer! :) This is for anyone else with the same issue.

You can set default actions in the Windows registry on a per-device basis. Run regedit.exe, and navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\<your device ID 1>\<your device ID 2>\Device Parameters].

In this folder, add a new String (REG_SZ) named DeviceHandlers and set the value equal to MSTakeNoAction.

Reference: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh127428.aspx

Answer 3

You should be able to change this in the control panel, or by typing "customize items on the taskbar" in the search bar in the start menu. Select the option and it should bring up a window that has the everything that appears in your taskbar and you can edit the notifications accordingly: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975785