An irritating "feature"

[Ed]

I notice that when I highlight more than 4 or so pictures in a directory the stupid software makes copies. Is there any way of turning this stupid thing off?

Windows XP, IE, for the record.

 

[davidhorman]

I notice that when I highlight more than 4 or so pictures in a directory the stupid software makes copies. Is there any way of turning this stupid thing off?

If you mean the computer, there's usually a big button you can push

I don't know of any "feature" in Windows that does this, although on occassion I've been busy click-click-clicking, selecting multiple items, when it will start copying, but this is just because I've accidentally click-dragged.

David

 

[Wudang]

I've seen the same thing and damn if I could see why it happened. It doens't seem to happen if sort and select via the keyboard so I suspect some minor glitch in my mouse technique - slipping on the Control key perhaps?

 

[MrMonty]

Would the "Do not cache Thumbnails" checkbox, found under Tools->Folder Options->View, make a difference?

Monty

 

[Rat]

Would the "Do not cache Thumbnails" checkbox, found under Tools->Folder Options->View, make a difference?

Monty

That's certainly what I'd have gone for, and is one of the first things I do when setting up a new machine at work.

Cheers,
Rat.

 

[a_unique_person]

I have fallen for that one before, too. The only reason I can think of for it happening is that you move the mouse slightly when you are selecting the pictures. Windows then assumes you are wanting to copy them somewhere. That's a guess, but it is a really annoying bug, because you then have to delete all the stupid copies that were created.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Glad I'm not the only person this happens to. Seems most likely in thumbnail view. I have never had it happen if view is set to list or details.

 

[Iconoclast]

Glad I'm not the only person this happens to. Seems most likely in thumbnail view. I have never had it happen if view is set to list or details.

If this unintentional drag/copy happens to you often, you can make life easier for yourself.

[edited to add] This problem can occur if you're holding down the CTRL key (add/remove selection) while selecting multiple files in quick succession. If you accidently move the mouse as you select one of the files, Windows will think you wish to perform a bulk copy and paste of all the files you've selected so far.

- Open the registry (oh no, not the registry!), or if you have TweakUI you can make the changes via that application.

- The following keys are of interest:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Control Panel->Desktop->DragHeight
HKEY_CURRENT_USER->Control Panel->Desktop->DragWidth

- These keys specify the horizontal and vertical distances (in pixels) that the user must drag the mouse to initiate a drag and drop operation. The default value for both is 4 pixels, you can increase it to something like 10 or 15 pixels to reduce the sensitivity. The information in this section of the registry is read only at login time, so if you change these values you need to log off and log back in again to see the change.

 

[Ove]

Not to hijack the thread but do anybody know how you turn all autorun functions off in XP? I can turn off most "what to do" functions (start media player - start image wiewer) etc. but the darn thing still insists on putting up a browser window every time i insert a CD in one of the CD drives. Can't you command the blasted thing do do absolutely NOTHING "on inserting a CD" ?

 

[Iconoclast]

Not to hijack the thread but do anybody know how you turn all autorun functions off in XP? I can turn off most "what to do" functions (start media player - start image wiewer) etc. but the darn thing still insists on putting up a browser window every time i insert a CD in one of the CD drives. Can't you command the blasted thing do do absolutely NOTHING "on inserting a CD" ?

According to this article on Annoyances.org, you can edit a key in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom

Set the key value for "Autorun" to "0", or if it's not there, add the key and set it's value. I've not tried this yet so can't vouch for it. The article says that setting this key to zero means the CDROM will NEVER alert Windows when you insert a disk, which sounds great to me. Note that this means if you insert a CD it's title text will not appear next to your E:\ drive in explorer until you refresh it's view with F5.

 

[Ove]

Thank you, and thank you VERY much for the link. I went there and spotted 2-3 other annoyances. Wonderfull website (Annoyances.org).

 

[Art Vandelay]

Some CDs have special features which launch themselves automatically when inserted into a CD-ROM. Will changing the Autorun status affect these automatic launches?

 

[TheFeds]

Some CDs have special features which launch themselves automatically when inserted into a CD-ROM. Will changing the Autorun status affect these automatic launches?

Yes! (This is a good thing.)

The autorun.inf file contains a set of instructions for the computer to execute when the CD is inserted--but typically, these involve running executables automatically. While the implication is that if you insert a CD, you trust its contents, in practice, this isn't necessarily the case. A certain copy-protection scheme depended on users autorunning CDs, at which point it launched an unauthorized executable which interfered with certain operations on the CD's contents. It's hard to consider that significantly different from a virus, in that it was executed surreptitiously (most users don't know what autorun is), and interferes with the computer.

Also, speaking hypothetically, if you happen to recieve a CD from some not-necessarily-commercial source, and it has an autorun function, what's to say that the associated .exe is not virus-infected, or outright malicious in its own right? Unless you're reasonably sure of the contents of every CD you use, it probably isn't wise to let things execute on their own like that.

In any event, you can still trigger the autorun functionality, even when disabled, by double-clicking its icon in Windows. (Its just no longer automatic.)

 

[Pepper's Ghost]

You can also stop the autorun "feature" on a CD by CD basis by holding down the shift key when you insert the CD.

Did I use CD enough in that sentence?

 

[Art Vandelay]

Yes! (This is a good thing.)

Yeah, on the whole I'd think I'd prefer not to have it. Even without the security issues, it's annoying to have to deal with audio CDs that seem to think that I want to look at the special features every time I put it in the computer. I guess this policy was started back when CD burners were not available, and so any CD would come from a presumably trustworthy company. Nowadays CDs are becoming the new floppies. Computers didn't automatically run any executables they found on floppies, did they? Also, what happens if there's more than one executable?

In any event, you can still trigger the autorun functionality, even when disabled, by double-clicking its icon in Windows. (Its just no longer automatic.)

Yeah, I've learned that if I want to actually look at the contents of the CD, rather than activating its autorun, I have right-click and choose "open".