enable USB Ports in Windows 7

How often you have witnessed blocked Pen drive or USB drive access in your work place or college or school? I believe many times; in fact every time you try to use the USB drive, you are not allowed, simply because the administrator has disabled USB drive detection on your PC. Again, how often has your data been stolen because someone connected an unauthorized USB to your computer and copied your files?  Well, you don’t need to worry because the solution to disable or enable USB Ports is pretty simple.

Restrict access to USB drives

There are three ways an administrator can prevent using of USB Drives.

They are:

1. Altering registry values for USB Mass Storage Devices.
2. Disabling USB Ports from Device Manager.
3. By Un-installing the USB Mass Storage Drivers.

Lets us look at how we can fix these problems and enable USB on Windows 7 PC.

1. Disable or Enable USB Mass Storage Devices using Registry.

If the administrator is smart then he would definitely do this to ensure a tight blockade. He would alter the settings through regedit command on run console. Now how do you unlock it ? You have to go right into where the administrator has been. Here is how.

1. Go to Start > Run , type “regedit” and press enter to open the registry editor
2. Navigate to the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR

In the right pane, select Start and change the value to 3. (The value 4 will disable USB Storage). Click OK. This will re-enable USB Ports and allow you to use USB or Pen drives.