How to Block Removable Drives App Installation on Windows 10

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Removable drives have often been used as the main spreading method for various forms of malware, and the autorun feature that Microsoft has integrated into Windows served as the door to your data.

And while antivirus solutions have become more effective in the fight against such malware, blocking it from the moment a removable drive is plugged in to the computer, there’s a different way to avoid infections and at the same time get some extra options.

Blocking the installation of apps stored on removable drives is seen by IT admins not only as a security feature, but also as a method to block employees from deploying software they aren’t allowed to, like games or personal apps.

Fortunately, there are easy ways to just restrict the installation of programs from removable media sources, like USB drives and DVDs, and they are available for both Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro.

Launching the Registry Editor from Start menu
On Windows 10 Home
Users running Windows 10 Home can employ such a restriction with the help of the Registry Editor. Of course, this involves being logged in with an administrator account, as standard accounts can’t make any changes in the Windows registry.

So the first thing to do is launch the Registry Editor. Press the Windows key + R and type regedit – as an alternative in Windows 10, you can just click the Start menu and type Registry Editor if you think this is a more convenient method.

In the Registry Editor, you need to navigate to the following path (just copy and paste the path in the address bar within the app):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
If the location does not exist, you have to create it by right-click every previous root folder and going to New > Key. Just make sure you enter the names of the folders correctly, as shown in the path above.

Once you are there, you must create a new DWORD value called DisableMedia. To do this, right-click the right pane and go to New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Double-click the newly-created DisableMedia and in the value data field, enter 1 – the standard value, which should be 0, means app installation from removable drives is allowed. If you want to return to the default configuration, you can either input value 0 or just remove the DWORD value entirely.