microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain

--->
> Open regedit, press Control-F (Find) and search for 'nodrivetypeautorun'
>
> Change each instance to FF hex. (or just change the one for
> HKEY_CURRENT_USER if you only want it to aply to a single account)
>
> After a reboot, that will nail autorun completely, for both CDs and memory
> sticks.
>
> Usual warnings about care in registry-editing apply.
>
>

Antaeus's advice is very good, and it will completely kill the autoplay,
but a method that lets you allow autoplay when you want is to simply
hold down the LEFT Shift key when you insert the CD/DVD. This tells the
OS not to allow autorun/autoplay.

I don't know if this was extended from XP to Vista, but it works on
everything from Win95 upwards to XP.

GP