How to prevent PC from spreading virus to USB Drive

Here is another tip to prevent public PC from acting as reservoir to spread virus/Trojan via USB Drive. When this technique applied with SHIFT key hold down technique, no virus will be able to spread via USB drive. (Unless the virus reverses whatever registry change we did to counter the spread)

This tip is specifically for Windows XP users as for Vista users, I believe UAC should protect you. I believe some of us do not realize that Windows XP SP2 provides extra function to protect your computer from writing data into USB drive. While some computer administrators are using this technique to prevent data theft from public or personal computers, this technique can be used perfectly to counter virus spread via USB Drive.

Before you messing around with windows registry, its safer to create a restore point.
Here`s a step by step instruction to set USB drive read only:
1. Open registry editor .Click Start > Run and type Regedit
2. Browse the windows registry and find this value:
a. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
3. If the StorageDevicePolicies key is not there, simple create the key under the parent key.
4. Create the following value WritePtotect (DWORD) and set it as 1
5. Close your registry editor and you are done!