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Neil Barton's avatar
Neil Barton
Copper Contributor
Sep 13, 2018

Locking a USB Drive

Windows 10 Pro. Is it possible to lock the USB ports to stop people using them unless they put in a password. 

The company have a student doing some work experience and they don't want him copying everything from the business and walking out with it, but they will want to transfer stuff onto the PC using a USB stick so what they envisage is that they put in a USB and it asks for some sort of password. It feels like I ought to be able to do it by making the student a standard user and make the use of the USB stick only available to administrators. Can't get my head around how to do it though :-(

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  • Akshay_Mane's avatar
    Akshay_Mane
    Iron Contributor
    Jul 15, 2019

     

    Yes this can be done in three ways.

    Disable USB Ports from Device Manager.

    Check out for any possibility in the Device Manager and enable the disabled port by right-clicking on selected one and click Enable.

     

    https://thewindowsclub-thewindowsclubco.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/image2.png

    Disable USB Drives & Mass Storage Devices using Registry

     

    1. Go to Start > Run, type “regedit” and press enter to open the registry editor
    2. Navigate to the following key

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR

    In the right pane, select Start and change the value to 3. (The value 4 will disable USB Storage). Click OK. This will re-enable USB Ports and allow you to use USB or Pen drives.

    https://thewindowsclub-thewindowsclubco.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/image1.png

     

    Uninstall USB Mass Storage Drivers

    If the authorities are really worried about security in the school, they will take the extreme step of uninstalling the USB Mass Storage Drivers. To make things work, just install the device drivers. Here is how you do it.

    As when you plug-in your USB drive, Windows will check for drivers, if not found https://www.apps4rent.com will prompt you to install the driver. This would definitely unlock the Pen drive at your School or office.

     

     

    Regards,

    Akshay

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