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  1. Member
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    Good evening to all! I was wondering if there is such a way, or program, to customize my flash/thumb drive? Like for instance when it is plugged in and it automatically opens can there be a background picture behind the folders? I searched on google for "customizing a flash drive" and all I got was pages to special order flash drives with like company logo's and such. If anyone can pass me some info or links, it would be appreciated. Thank you!
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  2. Mod Neophyte redwudz's Avatar
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    Not that I am aware of. The background of a window, even on a flash drive is from the computer, not the drive that's hooked to it. I think the company logos they are talking about are printed on the outside of the flashdrive. You can change the folder icons in the computer and save the folders with them on the flash drive if you want.
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  3. contrarian rallynavvie's Avatar
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    You can script an autorun.ini for a flash drive just like you can any other removeable disks. If the computer it's plugged in to has autorun enabled it will run that INI. However to put pictures behind folders and such advanced things that Windows doesn't do normally you'd probably have to make yourself a simple little GUI that references things on the flash drive. Easiest might be an HTML file with "links" to the files/folders on the flash drive.
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  4. Member
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    Actually, an autorun.inf file wouldn't work in this case (USB thumb drive). Autorun.inf files only work if the drive triggers an auto-insert notification event. CD and DVD drives will work, but Windows considers USB thumb drives as hard drives, which won't work.
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  5. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    re: Autorun...

    ALL devices can have autorun--floppies, harddrives, network drives, cd & dvd's, etc. There are registry flags that set which combinations are allowed to check for autorun. E.G., it's often common for the "harddrive" and "network drive" flags to be turned off.
    ...also...
    All drives can issue an "auto insert notification event", when they are 1st mounted (you can see examples of this when you mount a folder via the SUBST command). It's really more of a "mounting" event notification.

    re: HTML...

    Most standard Windows setups (from W98 on up), you have the option of using HTML-enabled pages as "ActiveDesktop" backgrounds for particular folders. This should include the ROOT folder (or "drive") itself.

    Similarly, on WinXP, there simple ways to customize the look of folders (icons, layout, etc). This doesn't seem to be accessible to customizing for the root folder, but one thing you could try would be to customize a subfolder, then copy and paste the HTML/XML/INF/etc. files to the ROOT. Note: they have [Hidden] and [System] flags checked, so you'll need to be able to switch your folder view so you can even see these files, let alone work with them. You may have to uncheck these flags 1st, then copy/paste, then recheck them, for it to work.

    Scott
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  6. Member
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    ALL devices can have autorun--floppies, harddrives, network drives, cd & dvd's, etc.
    At least in the Microsoft world, autorun capabilities are restricted to CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives and fixed disk drives (i.e., the device must not be marked as a removable media device.) If the device driver sends a StorageDeviceProperty request to the device, and the Removable Media Bit (RMB) is set in the response, Windows will not allow autorun.

    There are registry flags that set which combinations are allowed to check for autorun.
    Yes, you can change the NoDriveAutoRun and/or NoDriveTypeAutoRun settings in the registry on a given computer, but it won't make autorun work unless the device and driver support it, and even then, only on the computer with the modified registry setting(s). Additionally, Microsoft has this to say about it:
    Note The NoDriveAutoRun and NoDriveTypeAutoRun values should only be modified by system administrators to change the value for the entire system for testing or administrative purposes. Applications should not modify these values, as there is no way to reliably restore them to their original values.
    All drives can issue an "auto insert notification event"
    While it's probably true that all drives COULD theoretically issue an auto insert notification, the reality is that all don't. As an example, look at floppy drives. You can enable autorun for the drive (in the registry) and put a valid autorun.inf in the root directory, but since the drive sends no auto insert notification, nothing happens when you insert the disk unless you activate/refresh the drive in Windows Explorer.

    As to KingSeti's original question, after giving it some additional thought, you could try the Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager available here. It's supposed to enable autorun on USB thumbdrives on XP computers only. I haven't tried it myself, but from reading user experiences, the majority of users haven't had much success with the autorun feature. Also some thumbdrives seem to not work with it (Lexar's seem to have a problem as an example). It is free, however, so it doesn't cost you anything to give it a try.

    If it's something you really want to do, you could always get a thumbdrive specifically designed to support autorun. Hagiwara and Netac make them, as do a few others.
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  7. Member lumis's Avatar
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    i know autorun used to work on all drives..

    i once copied an autorun.inf file to the root of one of my hdd's, when i rebooted windows it gave me an error because the exe file it was pointing towards wasnt where it though it would be.
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  8. Member
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    CUSTOM FOLDER IMAGE:
    its all about customizing the desktop.ini file in a folder.

    just drop a jpg OR bmp file into the folder you want to customize

    open notepad
    write this in it:
    Code:
    [ExtShellFolderViews]
    {BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}={BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}
    [{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
    Attributes=1
    IconArea_Image=background_image.BMP
    [.ShellClassInfo]
    ConfirmFileOp=0
    IconFile=folder_icon_if_you_want.ico
    IconIndex=0
    dont know if the icon code works for removable drives... so maybe remove it iconfile & iconindex...

    oh, you can also use this program to choose bg image & text color :

    IESHWIZ.EXE
    but
    you have to place it in the folder you want modified.

    link http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Customize_folder.htm

    notice: the program will make a desktop.ini that has a FIXED 'ABSOLUTE' path ...aka : if the drive letter changes you dont see the picture.
    so
    you edit the desktop.ini file with notepad and:
    delete the path so only the FILENAME.BMP remains after the '='
    (in this case the picture MUST be in the folder with desktop.ini)
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  9. Member
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    Hi All! Thanks for all the replies! I did not think that this would be such an involved process. Shiet, I will check out the link that you posted in a little while. I only have a few minutes per day to try things out as I currently work 2 jobs. I will post back if I get anywhere and I appreciate everyone's response.
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  10. Member
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    OK, I checked out the little program IESHWIZ and I like it! I added my own picture, set it, unplugged it (the flash drive), and put in another computer and the pic was still there. But now i dont know if the computer ended up having the same drive letter or not when I put flash drive in it. I did this at work (my second job) with the computers on display! So I am not sure if I have to edit the .ini file or not but I will keep messin around with it. Thanks for the help and links guys, and maybe girls if any responded.
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  11. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    Having the same drive letter only works on a computer by computer basis.
    That means, when I put my flash drive in my home computer it'll come up with whatever is "NEXT" on the list---UNLESS I change the properties so that it remembers to always make it the "S" drive. Then, it will always remember--ON THAT COMPUTER ALONE.
    You have to do this with each computer that you want to remember/reserve the drive letter.

    Good thing is, if you have more than 1 flash drive, it remembers their serial #'s and always applies them accordingly. E.G., my wife's flash drive now always comes up as the "L" drive.

    Scott
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