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SanDisk accused of "Shades of Sony Rootkit"

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jgpaiva:
Thanks Tekzel!
Yes, you're right, i meant "autorun", and not "autoplay" in my whole reply.
As for autoplay, it can be disabled by right-clicking the flash disk on explorer and seeing in it's properties.

mrainey:
From the U3 website:

"What is a U3 smart solution?

A U3 smart solution is one that travels with the user on a U3 smart USB flash drive. Once installed on the drive, the application can run on any computer—without further installation!"


All my applications are standalone executables that can be run from standard flash drives.  People have been using the term "portable applications" of late to describe programs like mine.

How do "portable applications" differ from "U3 smart solutions"?

mwb1100:
Autorun and Autoplay are very much related - Autoplay also uses autorun.inf to control how it acts.  Microsoft seems to now call the older autorun behavior "Autoplay V1" and the new autoplay behavior "Autoplay V2".

However, it is true that removable media other than CD-ROM or DVD-ROM does act differently from CD/DVDs.  CD-ROM type devices will automatically launch the program specified in autorun.inf (at least with Autoplay V1), while other media and Autoplay V2 autorun.inf files will prompt for and get user consent before performing an action.

Added into the mix is "Auto Insert Notification" (AIN), which is the term used to describe the ability for the device hardware to notify the OS that media has been inserted.  AIN can be disabled for devices, but Autorun/Autoplay will still kick in in certain circumstances if you double-click on the drive in Explorer.

All of this terminology, differing behaviors for various devices, and barely documented registry settings for disabling/enabling various AutoRun/AutoPlay/AIN behaviors makes for a situation that easily confuses me.

I'm not sure what the preferable deafult behavior should be for these things, but at the minimum, CD-ROMs should behave the same as other media, and there should be a nice, single, standard control panel applet to turn the behavior on, off, or otherwise configure it.

That's my rant for the day.  If anyone wants to know more details on this stuff, here's some info straight from the horse's mouth:

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/11/autoplay/default.aspx
    http://msdn.com/library/en-us/shellcc/platform/shell/programmersguide/shell_basics/shell_basics_extending/autorun/autoplay_reg.asp
   

Tekzel:
How do "portable applications" differ from "U3 smart solutions"?
-mrainey (June 23, 2006, 03:10 PM)
--- End quote ---

A portable application typically just means a program that does not have to be installed, it is self contained.  It puts all its settings in a file in its directory, usually an ini or xml file. 

A U3 application is different in that it is aware that it is being run from a removable media, usually a USB thumb drive, and can store its settings anywhere, including the registry.  It just has to observe the "shut down" U3 commands and clean up after itself, removing stuff added to the registry and from the hard drive.  U3 apps can run directly off the stick, or it can be installed to the hard drive in the temp directory and run from there.

I took a stab at modifying a little program I made to be U3 compliant, but wasn't all that successful. It was just too much of a pain in rear for me and no fun, so I abandoned it.

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