FIX FOR USB SECURITY HOLE

USB pen drives have become a source of some concern for a lot of system administrators. There’s almost nothing to stop someone with one of these devices from using it to copy or steal data from PCs in offices, commercial premises, schools and colleges. In fact the problem was addressed in Windows XP Service Pack 2, which includes a new Registry key that stops data being copied to USB memory devices by classifying them as Read-Only media; this tip shows you how to use it.

Safety Warning! This tip is for advanced users as it involves editing the Registry. It’s not difficult but tinkering willy-nilly with it can cause problems. Even if you know what you are doing you should still set a new System Restore Point or backup the Registry.
Now that’s out of the way open the Registry Editor (type 'regedit’ in Run on the Start menu) and work your way to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\Control
If there is no StorageDevicePolicies subkey shown you will need to create one by right-clicking into the right-hand pane select New > Key; right click on the new key and Rename it. Double click the key to select it and from the Edit menu select New > DWORD Value and give the new value the name WriteProtect, press Enter then double-click the new value and set it to 1. Exit Regedit and reboot. To revert back to open access change the value to 0 or delete the key