Confusing AutoPlay behaviour

T

terrypin

Guest
First, apologies for length of this. But one question just seemed to
lead to another, and all seem associated - at least to my rather
confused mind.

Yesterday I inserted a CD set up disc to install a program. It
automatically displayed the setup screen, as it should. I went ahead and installed. I've done nothing else significant since. However, on all subsequent inserts, it does *not* now display the setup screen; it does nothing.

1) The r-click shortcut menu for the CD drive shows 'AutoPlay' at the top, in bold. So I assume that's the action I should get when I
d-click the icon?

I tried another CD disc, Microsoft Office 2000 Premium, and that too would not automatically display the setup/repair screen.

Yet inserting another application, Business Search Professional, which is designed to run from CD, *did* run automatically.

2) Should autoplay behaviour be consistent? I suppose it's conceivable that a registry entry could be made on the first occasion, changing later behaviour, possibly in an attempt to be helpful. (For example, on first occasion, a 'Repair' option would be meaningless.)

3) Presumably it's impossible for any program CD itself to be changed, even though the drive is capable of writing to CD-R and CD-RW media?

That got me trying to remember exactly what autoplay means. Under W98, if I had something called 'auto-insert' switched on somewhere, I recall that data CDs would run automatically if there was a file called autorun.inf in its root folder. Presumably that was W98 autoplay, although wasn't it called 'auto-start'?. But audio CDs were handled differently, and inserting one would trigger playing.

4) Is this still broadly the same under XP, i.e is it still all to do
with automatically running an INF file?

5) Under the drive's Properties/AutopPlay tab, is 'Mixed content' the appropriate one here? (There's no 'Data' option.)

6) Which action is appropriate: 'Open...' or 'No action'? (I've tried
both.) Neither sounds right to me in this context of a program CD.
Doesn't it need something like 'Open and Run either xyz.inf or
setup.exe'

7) Anyone else getting erratic behaviour with autoplay and know how to fix it please?

8) Is all this stuff documented somewhere in XP Home? Help & Support just says
"AutoPlay: Allows you to change the way Windows handles the media files it detects on a device with removable storage, such as a digital camera or a CD-ROM. For example, when Windows detects music tracks on your CD-ROM drive, it can automatically play the tracks or it can allow you to view them in a folder."
Note that there's no mention here of *data* CDs.

Terry, West Sussex, UK
 
Wow,, long post there terrypin!! :eek:

1) Yes if you click the bold autorun from the menu, it will autorun whatever is designed to run on that CD.

2) NO autorun behaviour IS NOT consistant, because autorun can do anything depending on whats been programmed, its just like a batch file that would say run setup.exe off the CD, or whatever.

3) Yes the CD itself cannot be changed because the CD is read-only, you cannot change the data on a CD.

4) Yes, your right, as I say in (2).

5) I've used and altered the autorun options for my CD-RM drives, by right clicking on the CD-ROM drive , selecting autorun tab, and then picking what I wanted to happen for each type of CD, and yes it does remeber what you set.

6) The autorun options, dont include run xx app, when CD inserted cos, every CD is different, and impossible to have options for every type of CD. I'd pick open, that way you will see the CDs contents and you can just click on whatever it is you want to use.

7) Once you finally set the autorun options for your drive, any future CD that match's any of the options available should behave accordingly.

Remember to have NO CD in your drive when setting this, otherwise it wont work, the drive has to be empty. You also will need to reboot afterwards.

8) For data CDs you should pick open folder, as I say in (6), its not practical to define every single CD in the world, thats why the options are limited.

The only bright side to all this is at least XP does something, 98 etc did nothing when you inserted different CDs. XP allows you to define particular programs to a particular type of CD.

Have you tryed having the CD in the drive and picking a particular program to run with it, like say explorer?.

And for your next post please only have one paragraph!!!!!!!
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Stuy_b
 
"1) Yes if you click the bold autorun from the menu, it will autorun whatever is designed to run on that CD."

You mean it *should* autorun. As I said, it doesn't - which was the point of my post!

"2) NO autorun behaviour IS NOT consistant, because autorun can do anything depending on whats been programmed, its just like a batch file that would say run setup.exe off the CD, or whatever."

'Consistent' in the context I used it means over successive insertions with the *same* CD. Obviously it doesn't do the same thing for different CDs!

"5) I've used and altered the autorun options for my CD-RM drives, by right clicking on the CD-ROM drive , selecting autorun tab, and then picking what I wanted to happen for each type of CD, and yes it does remeber what you set."

Once again - you mean it *should*. It doesn't here.

"6) The autorun options, dont include run xx app, when CD inserted cos, every CD is different, and impossible to have options for every type of CD. I'd pick open, that way you will see the CDs contents and you can just click on whatever it is >you want to use."

Er, yes, I do understand that.

"7) Once you finally set the autorun options for your drive, any future CD that match's any of the options available should behave accordingly."

Yes, they should. But they don't here.

"Remember to have NO CD in your drive when setting this, otherwise it wont work, the drive has to be empty. You also will need to reboot afterwards.

8) For data CDs you should pick open folder, as I say in (6), its not practical to define every single CD in the world, thats why the options are limited."

But you haven't addressed the key question: what about program CDs carrying setup.exe and/or something.inf?

"The only bright side to all this is at least XP does something, 98 etc did nothing when you inserted different CDs. XP allows you to define particular programs to a particular type of CD."

No. As I said in the para between 3) and 4), W98 also had autorun.

It was long; you didn't really read it did you?

Terry, West Sussex, UK


Stuy_b [/B][/QUOTE]
 
:rolleyes: cant help some people,.. gratitude is obviously hard 4 u!!, even if your still confused, a thankyou for trying would go amiss m8.

1).. it works for me and countless other XP setups I've done.

2).. :rolleyes:

5).. Yes it does work!.. as i say, every setup of XP i've done it works.

I did read it actually m8 :rolleyes: ever heard of gratitude, alittle thanks for your help, but I still cant get it to work wouldnt go amiss m8.

Are you logged in as administrator, if not then that might be why.

But then again, I dont know shite now do i!

Stuy_b

(cant please some people)
 

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