Is there any way to force a Windows 7 computer to process autoruns.inf on a USB stick?

There is nothing nefarious about this question.

We have some temporary worker who will be doing work on some confidential information.

I would like to give them the data on a USB stick, set up as a Truecrypt traveller disk, which they can stick into one of our computers.

I would like them to be prompted for the password, the partition gets mounted, they can then work on the data, save it, shut down the computer and return the USB stick.

Is this possible?

Yes, there is a registry keys that effect this, it is located at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun

or

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoDriveTypeAutoRun

If both locations are set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE will override any value set in HKEY_CURRENT_USER

The value of this key is a bitmask, you need to add the values together to get the combination you want.

• 0x1 Disables AutoPlay on drives of unknown type.
• 0x4 Disables AutoPlay on removable drives.
• 0x8 Disables AutoPlay on fixed drives.
• 0x10 Disables AutoPlay on network drives.
• 0x20 Disables AutoPlay on CD-ROM drives.
• 0x40 Disables AutoPlay on RAM drives.
• 0x80 Disables AutoPlay on drives of unknown type.
• 0xFF Disables AutoPlay on all types of drives.

So if you want to enable USB drives you will need to "subtract" 0x4 from the value you have (but only if the number has the 4 bit set).

This solution works all the way from Windows 7 to XP and likely works on windows 8 but is untested by me.

Read more: http://www.fortypoundhead.com/showcontent.asp?artid=2705