Introduction: Creating an Icon, Shortcuts, and Auto Execute Commands for a USB Flash Memory Device

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The fairly easy way to amaze people with your fancy flash drive! (for Windows)

Alright, first: You need some form of removable storage (not necessarily USB, but it's nice)

Now, insert the removable storage, and open a text editor (ie. notepad++ or notepad)

Type:

07EF:0001:0001:0001
[autorun]

Step 1: Creating a Custom Label

Now, to create a custom label, type:

label="Your Label Here"

Step 2: Creating an Icon

Note: I highly suggest you save the Icon to the device, otherwise there is a large chance this will not work on other machines (unless you are using Windows native Icons)

Type:

icon="Your icon file here.ico"

Note: You can use icons embedded in a *.dll file by placing the dll file under the icon tag, and then icon index

ie. icon="shell32.dll, 5"

(random number)

Bitmap (*.bmp) files are also supported for this action (but not recommended)

Step 3: Creating an Auto Execute Command


Now, this is not necessary, unless you wish to have some app open.

type:

action="Message to be displayed to describe app being run"

NOW, there are a couple options.

You could have the app only show up in Autoplay, or run when the device is opened from "My Computer"

Autoplay option:

open="App to be opened.exe"

Run on open from "My Computer":

shellexecute="App to be opened.exe"

Step 4: Creating Shell Commands


Alright, Shell Commands are little shortcuts that will pop up when you right click on the device in "My Computer"

type:

shell\exampleshortcut=Description of app
shell\exampleshortcut\command=App.exe

You can use as many of these as you want, as long as the identifier is unique in each case (the "exampleshortcut" part)

Note: You can place and ampersand (&) before the desired character if you wish to have a keyboard shortcut for the command

Step 5: SAVE

Save the file you just created as "autorun.inf" to the parent directory of the desired device

Note: changes will not take effect until you eject, and then re-insert the device into the computer

Also: There is much more you can do with autorun files, but that's more advanced stuff about identifiers and misc stuff (not really that important)