Read-Only USB custom Policy for Windows XP using Domain GPO.

HI, back again to the blog. This time I have been doing research for the ‘GROUP POLICY EDITOR’ for server 2008 R2 and Server 2012. During my research I found that ‘GPMC’ is a quite vast tool and can control almost everything of the system on AD. Here I have created a custom group policy to block the USB drive.

Some of you may ask why I need to create USB drive although I do have already a policy on the server to block USB. But if you read this policy carefully you will find out that this policy is for only the OS which are higher version than Windows Vista (i.e. Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8). But if someone ask you for Windows XP than??? What will you do?? If someone ask you for make a read-only policy for USB on windows XP. What will you do again?? So Simply I have created a custom Policy that can be compatible with windows XP or any other Windows Platform OS. Copy this code, Paste on notepad and save it in the extension of ‘.adm’.

CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY !!category1

POLICY !!policyname

EXPLAIN !!DefaultSharesExplain

KEYNAME “SystemCurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies”

VALUENAME “WriteProtect”

VALUEON NUMERIC 1

VALUEOFF NUMERIC 0

END POLICY

END CATEGORY

[strings]

category1=”Storage Device Read-Only”

policyname=”Storage Device Read-Only Policy”

DefaultSharesExplain=”If Enable is selected, USB will be write Protected and only work on Read-only mode. if Disbale is selected it will work on both Read and Write mode. This policy basically works for windows XP sp3.–>Creator Aerrow”

Once you have created the adm file. Open GPMC, Create a new policy and edit it. After that go to the Computer ConfigurationàPoliciesà Administrative Template.

Right click on Administrative template and select Add/Remove Template.

Click on Add and select the .adm file you have just created and click on close.

This will import your custom policy on you Group policy editior in ADMX. Where you can enable this policy.