Any way to disable USB & cd drives?

[jamit]

Hello,

I am interested in finding an easy way to disable or lock the USB ports on my computer along with the floppy drive and cd drives so they can't be used by anyone at bootup or at any time I don't want them to.

Does anyone know how I can easily do this and then easily reverse it whenever I like? A software program which could do this effectively would be ideal too. Much thanx.

[euangc]

You could try going to my computer right click/manage/device manager, open sub menus plus sign (+) right click on required items/drives and select disable, then reverse it to enable them ;D

[jamit]

Thanx Euangc. That looks like it would be good but are you sure that will keep them disabled so they can't be used somehow before Windows loads? And know anyway to password protect the changes, or lock them, so no one can change them. I'm using Win xp home. Thanx again for your help. :)

[squash]

Do what was suggested, and check your computer's BIOS settings, so they are set to not boot from USB Flash Drive.

Someone can put Linux on the drive with NTFS support and read or even your drive :) (I think, it could happen). Also if you don't let anyone else apart from you use the Administrator, no one can enable the USB and floppy in device manager (as far as I know).

[euangc]

Squash is right only peps with admin rights can enable them again ;)

[hadi]

use twaekui to hide them

[hadi]

correction: tweakui

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

download the -147kb- one (its for xpsp2 and above)

[squash]

What hadi suggested should be used as complement to the Device manager solution, not replace it.

If I only use the TweakUI program, sure it will hide the drives in My Computer, but then I can go to the address bar in My Computer or Internet Explorer and type in the drive letter and I can use the drive again... :)

[StevieO]

I think this could be exactly what you're looking for, not free but if you need it !

DeviceLock

With DeviceLock you can:

Control which users or groups can access USB and FireWire ports, WiFi and Bluetooth adapters, CD-ROMs, floppy drives, other removable devices
Control access to devices depending on the time of day and day of the week
Create the white list of USB devices which allows you to authorize only specific devices that will not be locked regardless of any other settings
Set devices in read-only mode
Protect disks from accidental or intentional formatting
Control it remotely using the centralized management console
Deploy permissions and settings via Group Policy in an Active Directory domain
Install and uninstall it automatically. http://www.protect-me.com/dl/


StevieO

[hadi]

-{ Quote: "What hadi suggested should be used as complement to the Device manager solution, not replace it.

If I only use the TweakUI program, sure it will hide the drives in My Computer, but then I can go to the address bar in My Computer or Internet Explorer and type in the drive letter and I can use the drive again... :)" }-

ahhh, am getting old,. forgot the address bar. thanks for pointing it out. With suggestions above I find USB is still accessible by putting an image (even empty image will do) then the USB flash will open it self automatically, and from there you can access others

[hadi]

withXP Pro you can try groupedit
start>run
type
GPEDIT.MSC

[diginsight]

-{ Quote: "Hello,

I am interested in finding an easy way to disable or lock the USB ports on my computer along with the floppy drive and cd drives so they can't be used by anyone at bootup or at any time I don't want them to.

Does anyone know how I can easily do this and then easily reverse it whenever I like? A software program which could do this effectively would be ideal too. Much thanx." }-

I have saved this message from a mailing list, although I have no experience with tool:

-{ Quote: "Microsoft has a free, unsupported tool called LockDrives. V1.3.6
released 23.01.2005. It can control access to floppy, CD and USB drives,
based on group membership." }-

I found this reference to this tool:
-{ Quote: "Lock Drives v1.3
17.06.2004

• All Service Parameters are now located under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\LockDrives. The old registry path
is kept for backward compatibility. Please use the new registry path.
• LockDrives can now detect DriveLetter changes.
• The group names LockDrives xxxxUsers can now be mapped to any group
(local or directory) you want. This is done by defining the Registry
Values for the LockDrives group names to me mapped to under the
following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\LockDrives\GroupNames

For example:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\LockDrives\GroupNames\LockDrives FloppyUsers = (STRING) “my groupname in active directory”

If you define an empty string or don’t define a group at all, the default group name LockDrives xxxxUsers is used.
• The Setup has been changed. There only two msi packages:
o LockDrivesServiceSetup.msi contains the service and the command line tool
o LockDrivesManagerSetup.msi contains the manager gui application " }-

You need to contact Microsoft support to have them e-mail a link where you can download it. Although I don't know if this tool qualifies as 'easy' ;D I suppose it's main purpose is to provide USB control in a corporate environment using Group Policies.

[hadi]

Very intersting. didnt think so difficult
here is another lockdrive
http://www.protect-me.com/dl/faq.html#12

-{ Quote: "Q: What limitations are there in an unregistered version?
A: There are no functional limitations for an unregistered version and you may use DeviceLock® (during the evaluation period) as a fully registered program but only on one computer. An unregistered version of DeviceLock® displays nag screens" }-

[hadi]

Hi jamit
I did a test for u. coz I have a HD with XP-SP2 for testing purpose only.
download devicelock
http://www.protect-me.com/dl/download.html
unzip
you see two setups
setup & setup_gp the later for group policy "devicelock embeded"
I used the later coz XP is PRO one
now
start>run
type
gpedit.msc
group policy manager appears and you see "smartline Device Lock" in the left pane. click on it click ok to get rid of the nag screen
now on the right pane right-click on say: floppy. choose "set parameters" and there you can set resitrictions on hours, days or weeks and more. very nice indeed
If your XP is Home one. use "setup" not "setup_gp"
hope this helps.

[StevieO]

It seems my much earlier post about this site and their products was missed ? http://www.protect-me.com/dl/


StevieO

[aksv18]

any problems relating to DeviceLock software???