changed from executing an application to invoking AutoPlay. From Windows Vista, the AutoPlay system is integrated into every aspect of media handling and there is no automatic execution of the AutoRun task. The default Registry settings add Removable drives to those that initiated AutoRun. In Windows XP and higher, except Windows Server 2003, only the Unknown and Remote drive types are not active for AutoRun. The handling of the autorun.inf file changes very significantly between each Windows version. The details can be found in the autorun.inf article. The current handling in Windows 7 is that only drives of type DRIVE_CDROM may specify an AutoRun task, alter double-click behaviour or change context menus. Registry settings AutoRun consults Windows Registry values to decide whether to initiate actions for any particular drive or drive type. These values can be changed using several methods, one of which is using Group Policy. The primary relevant Registry entry names are and . These exist in both per-machine and per-user settings and their location and priority in the Registry are described in further detail below. Drive types The drive types are distinguished by Type Name as follows: Registry terminology The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores configuration settings and options for the operating system. The terminology is somewhat misleading so it is briefly summarised here. A Registry key is similar to a folder that, in addition to values, each key can contain subkeys which in turn may contain subkeys, and so on. A Registry value consists of a name-data pair. Microsoft documentation commonly uses the term "entry" as an equivalent term. It also uses "value" for "data" when it is obvious what is meant. To avoid confusion, this article always uses the term "entry" when referring to the name-data pair. Two Registry keys that are very commonly referred to are which contains per-machine settings, and which contains settings for the currently logged-on user. These are almost always abbreviated as and respectively. There may be many users of a machine; their settings are stored in , is actually just a link to the appropriate place in . Changing Registry settings Registry settings may be changed directly by using the GUI tool or the command line utility. Settings can also be placed in a text file, named with a .reg extension type. For example, "". When the file is double clicked, the settings in the file are