For example, if you insert an SD card containing photos from your digital camera, it will recommend you do something appropriate for picture files. When you inserted a disc, USB flash drive, or another type of removable media device, Windows will examine its contents and suggest actions to you. Windows XP refined this feature with an “AutoPlay” function.

AutoRun for floppy disks would allow malware to spread from floppy to computer to floppy to computer. After all, anyone could place whatever files they wanted on a floppy disk.

You’d really only come across commercial discs, and they were generally trustworthy.īut even back in Windows 95 when AutoRun was introduced, it wasn’t enabled for After all, home users didn’t have an easy way to produce their own CDs before CD burners were widespread. This worked quite well for a time, and there were no big issues. If AutoRun didn’t exist, users would have to open the file browser window, navigate to the disc, and launch a setup.exe file from there instead. The feature was designed to make such discs easy to use, reducing user confusion. This is why, when you inserted a software CD or PC game disc into your computer, it automatically launched an installer or splash screen with options. When you inserted a software disc into your computer, Windows would automatically read the disc, and - if an autorun.inf file was found in the root directory of the disc - it would automatically launch the program specified in the autorun.inf file. Not All 'Viruses' Are Viruses: 10 Malware Terms ExplainedĪutoRun was a feature introduced in Windows 95.

Autorun malware