DVD and Autoplay/Autorun

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A few weeks back I started having problems with my DVD units in that inserting DVDs or CDs would not invoke the autoplay or autorun processes. I could still access the media but only through Windows Explorer and I would proceed from there.

At the time I had other things on my mind and just accepted the glitch. Well yesterday I bought and downloaded some music files. I opened up Windows Media Player 11 to burn the tracks to a CD. WMP would not acknowledge that the optical drives existed… no matter what I did. OK, this was getting serious!

Researching the problem took me in many directions. From running the MS autoplay repair wizard, to Kelly’s Korner and countless other hints and possible solutions. None of them worked. However, during the process, I clicked on the properties feature of one of the tasks and noticed that prefetch was part of the command string.

Remembering another issue posted on The Lounge many moons ago about clearing the prefetch folder I decided to try that. In my Windows XP environment, I went to C:WindowsPrefetch and deleted all the entries. Rebooted the PC and with anticipation, fed DVDs and CDs to both optical drives with great success… the autoplay and autorun features were restored. Then called up WMP11 and the two drives were flagged as being available for burning.

A happy camper tis I. Hope this helps someone else who might have a similar issue.

Cheers, Bob

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Bob,
One reason why I have the prefetch “feature” only monitor the boot up and nothing else.

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Bob,

Thanks for that comment. I was unaware that one could modify how prefetch works. Did some research and in an earlier reply to Al, I included a link concerning prefetch which shows how to modify that process. I will now be changing mine to monitor boot up only.

Thanks again,

Cheers, Bob

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Since I don’t know what you researched here in The Lounge and more recent members may be interested in this subject, here’s one thread from a couple of years ago in which Viking participated – post 502,840. If either of you have other Lounge references you want to add, please do so, with the goal of helping others in their searches.

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Ah yes, I remember that lively discussion.
Opinions and all.
Sorry, can’t add any other references than those.

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Ask and you shall receive…

Edited 2007-07-16 to correct post number from 477,911 to 477,191

Here are some threads from The Lounge that provide insight to the issues of problems with autoplay and autorun… post 593,135, post 571,164, post 558,652 and post 477,191.

From Microsoft, we have Support Article Q330135 and Support Article KB817357.

Microsoft also publishes an Autoplay Repair Wizard.

Kelly’s Korner Registry Tweaks can be found here.

A good description of the prefetch function in Windows XP and how to modify what it gathers can be found here.

Some of the above hints involve changing the registry. Always remember to back up your registry before making any changes. If you are not sure of how to do that then I would recommend staying away from changing the registry until you have done some research on the matter. Go to this Microsoft article for more information on changing the registry.

Hope this helps…

Cheers, Bob

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