Auto Play - Windows 95 and Windows 98

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 AudioCD file type. This is normally set to "Play" and commonly calls cdplayer.exe.

If the DVD is a Movie DVD then Explorer calls the default action registered for the DVD file type. Movie DVDs are recognised by the existence of the file \video_ts\video_ts.ifo. The action for DVD is also normally set to "Play" and commonly calls dvdplay.exe.

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 or Group Policy or looking for QueryCancelAutoPlay messages within an application does not prevent these media types from automatically playing on insertion.

However one can disable Audio CDs by editing the file type for AudioCD and clicking "Set default". This will remove the Play action as the default for that file type. Alternatively, changing the (Default) entry under the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\Shell key to "" (a blank string) will accomplish the same thing. The disabling action for Movie DVDs is the same, with "DVD" used in place of "AudioCD".

The pertinent Registry settings are shown below along with their defaults in Windows 98SE:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\shell (Default) "Play" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\shell\play (Default) "&Play" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AudioCD\shell\play\command (Default) "%SystemRoot%\cdplayer.exe /play %1" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\shell (Default) "Play" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\shell\play (Default) "&Play" HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DVD\shell\play\command (Default) "%SystemRoot%\system32\dvdplay.exe /play %1"