Once in a while I have a friend, or customer that needs to keep people from using the USB ports to copy data off of a system.

It is easy to lock a machine down, disable the floppy, and cdrom in the bios. Many times when you try to disable USB – it disables it entirely.

This can be a real pain on newer laptops or systems that don’t even have a PS2 interface for the mouse or keyboard.

There is a simple registry change that will keep the USB storage drivers from starting when the system boots. Keeps people from walking up to a PC and copying data off with a USB key, but allows you to keep your scanner, keyboard, and mouse working.

As always – back your system up before messing around in the registry.

Go to Start -> Run -> Type regedit and hit Enter or click on the OK button.
Browse to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
Notice the value ‘Start’

Double click on the ‘Start’ in regedit and the default value data should be 3.

USB Regedit Dword
Switch this value data to 4, and USB storage devices are disabled.
Switch this value data back to 3, and USB storage devices are enabled.

For those of you that don’t feel like messing around in the registry, there is a freeware called IntelliAdmin USB Drive Disabler that does the registry modification above by just clicking a button.
IntelliAdmin USB Drive Disabler

[ Download IntelliAdmin USB Drive Disabler ]

Note: Eventhough the freeware clearly states that “Make sure you reboot after making the change”, you do NOT need to restart your computer in order to take effect in either way you use to disable removable storage devices such as USB drives. I’ve tried it ;)