Read-Only USB Storage

If you've been concerned about the possibility that users in your Windows XP environment might plug in a USB storage key and walk away with hundreds of megabytes of proprietary corporate information, XP Service Pack 2 (SP 2) lets you make USB storage devices read only, removing the possibility of leaking data via a USB key. To configure USB storage for read only, perform the following steps:

1. Launch the registry editor.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

3. You should see a key called StorageDevicePolicies. If it doesn't exist, create a new key with that name.

4. In the StorageDevicePolicy key, create a REG_DWORD value called WriteProtect.

5. Set the data value of WriteProtect to 1.

6. This value will make USB storage read only. To enable read/write over USB, set the value to 0.

7. Exit the editor.

Make sure that you aren't using other USB storage devices such as hard drives or a CD/DVD writer before you set this registry value.