have a drive letter, AutoPlay properties cannot be accessed and changed through "My Computer". However, when a device is attached, the discovery causes Windows to place an icon in the taskbar notification area (commonly referred to as the tray). AutoPlay preferences for this device can now be changed by clicking this icon. The adjacent image shows the icon that appeared when a video camera was attached. Default settings On a new installation of Windows, a default set of handler applications are registered with the AutoPlay system. The following are the defaults with Windows XP SP2. The and are simply strings stored within the Handler, they can vary to give the user a better idea of what will happen if they choose that action. They can also change to suit a user's preferred language. Many Handlers use the same Windows application; for example, Windows Media Player is used to play Music files as well as DVD movies. The word "using" is added by AutoPlay to join the two strings neatly. Windows 95 and Windows 98 Windows 95 and Windows 98 do have a primitive version of AutoPlay. Its sole job is to deal with Audio CDs and Movie DVDs and start an application to deal with them. If the new arrival does not fall into one of these categories Windows proceeds with the usual AutoRun process. The action taken with Audio CDs and Movie DVDs essentially considers both types of media as if they were files; Explorer then simply performs the default action associated with that file type. File types and the actions associated with them can be viewed and changed from within any Explorer folder from the "File Types" tab of the "Tools/Folder Options" menu. They are stored in the Registry under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If the CD is a Red Book standard format Audio CD, then Explorer calls the default action registered for the file type. This is normally set to "Play" and commonly calls . If the DVD is a Movie DVD then Explorer calls the default action registered for the file type. Movie DVDs are recognised by the existence of the file . The action for DVD is also normally set to "Play" and commonly calls . The fact that the check for Audio CDs and Movie DVDs is done before AutoRun has implications for disabling the automatic playing of these types of media. Disabling AutoRun via the Registry