As you have seen in these last times, the CD and DVD drives are quickly disappearing from laptops and desktop more modern, so that the USB ports and the corresponding units of storage are becoming more common devices used for transferring files or making backups, as well as for use as installation media.
At the same time, if we look at the USB market, we will see that it has also generally increased the capacity of these products, as well as their performance, clear example of all this we have in the compatibility with USB 3.0 ports. However, at the same time we must keep in mind that if one of these units comes from an infected system or is malicious, it can also infect our equipment by connecting it almost at the moment.
Therefore, if in certain circumstances we wish, we can always disable USB drives on the system for greater security, let’s see how to do it on these lines. To say that this is something we can do both in Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro, but while in the first case we will do it through the system registry, in the second we will do it from the group directives Editor. However, in both cases, we will need to have administrator rights to disable USB drives.
Disable USB ports in Windows 10 Home and Pro
Well, for the first of the versions of the Microsoft operating system, first we look at the system log via the command “regedit”, we type in the bar of the Start menu.
Then in the window on the right, we see a value called “Start,” so we have to double click on it to edit it. At this point, we will say that in most cases it will have a value of “3“, so we have to replace it with” 4“, after which we click” OK” and close the register.
On the other hand, about Windows 10 Pro, we opened the group directive and placed ourselves in the policy: “Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates /System / Access to removable storage”. This is where we will be able to deny the permission to read and write the USB ports, which will prevent the drives connected to the computer in this way, from reaching the system.
Create your own Windows 10 portable always to carry a USB memory
Create your own Windows 10 portable always to carry a USB memory
With these changes, the next time when you connect a USB drive or any other storage device through a USB port, you will not see it in the File Explorer. As the drive will not be able to run automatically and you will not be able to access it in any way, which may be an additional security system in some cases.