When you plug in a storage device to your Windows computer, a dialog box may appear and offer some options that you can do with the device. But in some occasions, Windows goes ahead and directly performs an operation with the device without your permission, such as opening a program automatically. This behavior can be frustrating, especially when you have something else in mind for the external device. To change what your computer does when you plug in a storage device, you need to configure the AutoPlay settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To bring up the AutoPlay settings, open Control Panel<\/span> in the desktop. Change the view to icons instead of categories. Click AutoPlay<\/span>. (Alternately, type autoplay<\/span> in the Control Panel search box and click it when it appears in the results.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AutoPlay settings window lets you configure a lot of things according to the type of external device. For instance, you can specify an action when you plug in a camera storage and a different action when you insert a Blu-ray disc. Some types of external devices are categorized further according to media or content. For instance, you can set varying AutoPlay actions between a DVD movie and a blank DVD.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe common AutoPlay actions you can choose as the defaults are the following:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n