How to Disable or Enable USB in the computer?

Now days there are certain type of viruses and spy-wares that are spreading from pen-drives just because of the unprotected use of Pen drives because usually user does not scan the pen drive before its use by the updates anti virus software’s. This situation got worse on shared computers. So, some of the administrators block the USB ports so that system does not get infected by this way. You can also disable and re-enable your system's USB ports by a simple trick.

How to disable USB storage accesses for a certain group of users this disabling and re-enabling of USB ports is based on a simple registry entry. By following these simple steps anyone can disable and re-enable the access of USB ports.

To disable the access to USB port, in Windows XP and Windows 2000

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor

4. In the right pane, double-click Start.

5. In the Value data box, type 4, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.

6. Quit Registry Editor.

To re-enable a disabled port:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
4. In the right pane, double-click Start.
5. In the Value data box, type 3, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

Serve your company better…… - Elango C