Autoplay CD Drives - Enabled

How to Configure them to Automatically display Content

In the previous page we told you how to disable Autoplay - if that's your plan then skip this page, because here we tell you how to use the Autoplay feature, which is enabled by default on all CD/DVD drives.

Autoplay starts to read from a drive as soon as you insert media in the drive, which causes the setup file for programs or audio media to start immediately. It is a nice feature actually, because you can tell Windows what program to start up based on the contents of the inserted disc.  For example, an audio CD starts up WMplayer, and a DVD starts up PowerDVD player, and data starts up Windows Explorer.

OR you can choose to autoplay an audio CD, and do nothing if it is a data CD - the choices are up to you.

  1. open Windows Explorer, or double-click on "My Computer"

  2. right-click on the CD/DVD drive, and select "Properties".

  3. click the Autoplay tab -  You will see a drop-down arrow next to a box, which contains 7 different types of CD/DVD content (file types).  The "mixed content" means there are multiple types of files on the CD

                                                    

  4. using the drop-down arrow, make your selections for each type on content.  Go through and set your selections one at a time.  For each selection, you will need to first click either:
  •  "Select an action to perform" - will launch the same application or viewer, every time you insert a CD/DVD with that type of content
  • "Prompt me each time to choose an action" - will bring up a box with all options that are currently listed, allowing you to make the choice interactively.   

***  after each selection, and before you make your next selection - make sure to click the "Apply" button - otherwise you will lose your selection

  1. When finished with all 7 settings, click OK

Here are some suggested settings for the 7 types of content. 

IMPORTANT:  this is followed by the method to add special selections to the available list.  For example, you may want to autoplay your DVD's using PowerDVD - but it is not on the list !!  We show you how further down.

NOTE:  the list of options that appears depends on the applications that you have installed.  Windows will list those apps that are associated with the particular file types for the content type you have select in the drop-down box

 

 

Autoplay Repair v2.0 - download here

(requires Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 - also a free download)

- to setup AutoPlay to launch the Player of your Choice - if it is not on the List

After a lot of work on this - I had entered info that DOES NOT WORK !!!  Now that is fixed.  I was trying to use the filetype "DVD Video" to associate and add an entry to the Autoplay selection box.  But that selection is for "DVD Movie" - not "DVD Video".  Besides, the main problem is this:

filetypes have nothing to do with what happens when a DVD disc is inserted into a drive. file types is for handling default actions when double clicking or opening a particular type of file. Autoplay settings are set for devices. file types are set for types of files.

BUT with Autoplay Repair it is possible to remove these invalid entries and even create new or modify existing so called autoplay handlers quickly and easily. But Autoplay Repair can also be used to remove unwanted entries or just to tidy up the Windows autoplay sections for a better overview. In addition to that Autoplay Repair has some other necessary features to offer.

Here are some key features of "Autoplay Repair":

· Create, modify or delete (corrupted) Autoplay Handler entries from the Windows Registry quickly
· Have control of the main autorun sections in the Registry: add, edit or delete single entries
· Disable or enable Autoplay for each installed drive on your computer
· Create backups of Autoplay and Autorun sections to restore deleted or edited Registry entries if needed




 

 

 

The rest of this page explains something that will not work !! Working on a fix . . .

 

As you can see, you can select an action to perform - to configure Autoplay.  But there are only a few items shown, and there is no "browse" button to select another application.  You may want to add special selections to the available list.

The only tricky part . . . is the "switches" on the command line.  We will get to that in a bit.

Here we will explain this using an example - so for example, you may want to autoplay your DVD's using PowerDVD - but it is not on the list.  Here is how you can add it.

By default, Windows will list every application that is associated with the "FileType" of "DVD Video".

open Windows Explorer, and select Tools/Folder Options . . .

By default, all the filetypes will be listed in alphabetical order by their extensions.  We need to find the filetype "DVD Video" - so sort them by the full name of the filetype by clicking once on the header, "File Types"

               

Bote that the extension is "none" . . . this means there is no single file type associated with DVD's.  They have IFO, VOB, and BUF files, but Windows identifies a DVD by the entire nature of the disc, rather than a file extension.  Anyway, scroll down, click on DVD Video, and click the "Advanced" button

You will see each application that showed up in the Autoplay selection list in the box, with the top entry "Play" being associated with WMplayer.  You need to add DVDplayer to the list.  It is a bit complex, so the easiest way is to open one of the entries and copy the command line. 

For this example we click on "Decrypt using DVD Decrypter" to select it, and then click the "Edit" button  .  .  .  the following box pops open:

Study this box . . . note each field that is filled out and what is entered in each field.  The application field is too long and complex to remember, so drag to select the "Application used to perform action:" line, hit CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard . . . then open Notepad and hit CTRL-V to paste it there as a temporary holding space.  This is only to gove you an example of the switches used with DDE application launches.  In this case, the line reads:

"D:\Winapps\dvdutils\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe" /MODE READ /SOURCE "%1"

So it is using the switches:   /MODE READ /SOURCE "%1"

NOTE:  much more common are the switches:   /open   and   /play   and   /close
However, a DVD may require special switches, as is the case with DVDdecrypter  - 
which is why we copied the line to Notepad, just in case.

Double-Quotes or Colon - in the "application used to . . ." field, for various entries, you will see anything with spaces must have double-quotes surrounding it, as in:

"D:\Winapps\dvdutils\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe" /MODE READ /SOURCE "%1"
-which has four double-quotes (the %1 is surround by double-quotes)

.  Or if there is just one switch, they may have a colon at the end, followed by that switch with no spaces.  For example, the VLClan player's line reads:

D:\Program Files\VLC Video Player\vlc.exe dvd:%1

%1 (the number one)  or  %L (the letter L) - in the "application used to . . ." field - who knows why some lines have a %1 and some have a %L  -  just realize it, and if you have to play around with the options to get it to work, try both %1 and %L
 

Click "Cancel" to go back, then click "New" to bring up an empty file type box.  You can add the new entry without DDE, but to be safe, we use DDE and check the box to bring up those options:

Click browse to find the Application, Cyberlink's PowerDVD.exe, and it will appear in the box with no switches.  You can choose to add switches now, or try it alone without switches (many times that works fine), which is what we will do here.  Fill in the other fields in the same way as the box for DVDdecrypter was filled in:

:

 

 

Now, finally  .  .   "OK" out, pop in your DVD, and test  .  .  .