Windows Basics

The AutoRun or "AutoPlay" feature in Windows allows a program to be launched automatically when a CD is inserted.

Note: Some users may choose to disable the AutoRun feature on their system. On these systems, an AutoRun-enabled CD will not launch automatically.

How It Works

When Windows senses that a CD has been inserted into a CD-ROM drive, it checks for a file named autorun.inf in the root folder of the CD.

The autorun.inf file contains standard ASCII text that looks something like this:

[autorun]
open=autorun.exe
icon=autorun.ico

The open command tells Windows the location of the executable to launch automatically (in this case, it says to run the file named autorun.exe in the root folder of the CD).

The icon command tells Windows the location of an icon file (.ico) to use as the image for the inserted CD in Windows.

The icon command is optional. If the icon file contains more than one icon, you can specify an icon in the file by providing a zero-based index, like so:

icon=autorun.ico 1

Note: AutoPlay Media Studio can generate a fully-configured autorun.inf file for you as part of the build process.

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