How to enable write protection of USB in windows

How to Enable Write Protection of USB in windows

Enable write protection of USB People often want to create a secure layer for their PC or tablets and any other devices. Now if you are having a PC where you want to prevent other persons from copying your data to the USB drive, then what you have to do?

Do you have any idea about what to do?

When someone just got access to your computer and insert a USB drive and just copy all your files without your and just walk away with the sensitive data.

What are you going to do at that time? Mostly you can do anything after he has taken the data, but if you want to prevent him from copying your files, then there are few ways.

Of course, you might already know some ways to protect your computer with the password, or by setting up a Strong Encryption

But what if he knows your password or pin, he may just insert the USB flash drive and simply copy your data.

Now, to prevent those type of sensitive loses. Window 10 has unique features called write protection.

You might already know about what is write protection, but if you don’t know, then I going to cover that in this article.

What is Write Protected?

Write protected means the data of it can’t be changed or copied or deleted and even can’t be formatted. This entirely prevents unauthorized user away from your system and don’t allow any modifications to the disk and it protects the data stored in the device.

Now, you have a clear view on the write protected right?

Let’s jump into further article,

Window 10 has a valid option in securing your PC from all kind of strange attacks. And it also has the feature of the write protection.

But fortunately, it is a hidden feature for some unknown reasons, if you enable that features mean it allows you to prevent any users from even inserting a USB into your PC.

Let’s see how to enable write protection of USB in windows 10.

Here I’ll walk you through all the required steps to enable write protection in USB.

How to Enable Write Protection of USB

Caution: Remember that this is a typical task to edit the registry and also the process of editing registry is somewhat risky, if you do any wrong in this process you can cause some damage to your installation, so it’s highly recommended to make a full backup of your PC.

Let’s walk through, these steps,

How to Enable Write Protection of USB in windows 10

• Press, the Window key + R on the keyword, to open run command on your PC.
• You can even open Run Command by hovering over Cortana and by typing Run.
• After opening Run type regedit, and press enter.
• After opening Run type regedit, and press enter.
• It opens a registry.
• Now search for the following path in the registry:
• Now, right click on the control key and select new and click on the key.
• After creating a new key “Name the new key As “ storage device policies” and press enter”.
• Select the newly created key, and simply right click on the right side, and choose the DWORD (32-bit) Value.
• After creating it name the new Dword write protect and press enter.
• Double-click on the newly created DWORD and change its value from 0 to 1.
• Now click ok.
• Close the registry to complete its mission.

Once you have gone through all the process and completed each and every step, now you can see the result. If anyone enters you PC through the USB drive, then they’ll be denied all copy process by the PC, and they’ll get a notification that “this disk is write-protected”.

No, one can edit, delete, create or change your drive, and also they can even rename or format your files.

If you want to go back, then you can do the same process, but you must just keep the DWORD value from 1 to 0.

Now let’s dive into the second process to enable the USB to write protection.

How to enable write protection of USB by using the group policy:

If you don’t want to edit your registry, then you can simply skip that process, and you can try this process.

If you have windows ten pro or enterprise, then you can access this feature by the group policy editor.

It can simply deny the copy privileges of the removable devices.

Let’s start,

Enable the write protection using the group policy:

• Press the windows key + R to open the Run Command.
• This is the keyboard shortcut if you want to use Cortana to search you can also do that.
• Now, type gpedit.Msc command and click on enter to open the local group policy editor.
• Just browse the computer configuration and select the administrative templates.
• After selecting the administrative templates choose the system and then removable storage access.
• Now, on the right-hand side, you can double click on the “ Removal Disks: Deny writes access on the group policy.
• Then go to the top left, and select the Enable option to active the group policy.
  Simply click on Apply and hit enter.
• Now, restart your system by closing the group policy editor and after system has restarted you can see the changes.

The write protection is activated, and if anyone keeps his/her USB to copy, edit or format your files they can’t do it they get the same notification as the first one.

Now, if you want to remove the USB write protection then you simply can follow the same process until you reach the step 6.

Then instead of enable there you should click on the not configured option to bring back your system to normal stage.

Conclusion:

This is all about “how to enable write protection of USB in windows 10”. I hope you all has understood these steps. If you do have, any comments do let us know in comments section.