Hide Windows Drives Policy

Monday, 25 July 2005 14:54

To prevent a drive or any combination of drives from appearing in My Computer, Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer, for security purposes in a multiuser environment, if you own the computer or have Administrator privileges, add/modify the "NoDrives" (don't type the quotation marks) Binary [hex] value under this Registry key, using Regedit:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer
Give it a value from the list below to hide the individual drive of your choice (don't type the spaces):

A = 01 00 00 00 B = 02 00 00 00 C = 04 00 00 00 D = 08 00 00 00 E = 10 00 00 00 F = 20 00 00 00 G = 40 00 00 00 H = 80 00 00 00 I = 00 01 00 00 J = 00 02 00 00 K = 00 04 00 00 L = 00 08 00 00 M = 00 10 00 00

N = 00 20 00 00 O = 00 40 00 00 P = 00 80 00 00 Q = 00 00 01 00 R = 00 00 02 00 S = 00 00 04 00 T = 00 00 08 00 U = 00 00 10 00 V = 00 00 20 00 W = 00 00 40 00 X = 00 00 80 00 Y = 00 00 00 01 Z = 00 00 00 02

Example: to hide drives D, E, Y and Z give "NoDrives" this value: 18 00 00 03 Where: D + E = 18 and Y + Z = 03 (cumulative values).

NOTE:    These numbers are in HEXadecimal. Example: to hide drives A, B, C and D, use 0F, NOT 15, when cumulating multiple drives.
Show all drives (A to Z) "NoDrives" value: 00 00 00 00
Hide all drives (A to Z)  value: FF FF FF 03

You can also do this by using TweakUI, one of the Microsoft Power Toys for Windows 9x/NT4/2000/ME [110 KB, free, unsupported].

Use TweakUI with caution, ONLY AFTER BACKING UP YOUR REGISTRY! Open Control Panel ---> TweakUI ---> My Computer tab ---> check to show or uncheck to hide the desired drive boxes ---> click OK/Apply.

Windows 9x default is to show ALL local and remote (network) drives: A to Z.

TO DO:
&==& All these settings apply also to the "NoDriveTypeAutoRun" Binary [hex] value, to enable/disable the AutoRun feature on selected drives (useful for disabling AutoRun on cd-roms), and found also at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer