SHORT ANSWER: Go into the device manager and find the cdrom device it created the first time you installed it. Right click on the device and click on disable. U3 is now effecively disabled.
DISCUSSION:
A friend of mine purchased a new USB flash drive and when he installed it, it not only created a drive for the flash memory but it created a second drive, aprearing as cdrom drive, and auto ran an applicaton U3 (www.u3.com). My friend did not want this to run when he inserted the drive.
After looking at what was happening when the drive was inserted, I tried to remove the startup files. No joy, since the flash drive presents itself to as a cdrom, all the files are read only. I checked the Help section of U3, no joy. So doing a brief (15 min) search on the internet, I determined there was no way of removing the U3 partition.
I next tried to disable it. Again I checked the Help on U3, nope nothing about disabling it. After determining there was nothing I could do on flash side to stop it, short of hacking the thing, I look for a way to stop it on the OS side. The answer turned out to be quite simple: Go into the device manager and find the cdrom device it created the first time you installed it. Right click on the device and click on disable. U3 is now effecively disabled. Problem solved.
LEGAL\ETHICAL
Ok now I’m sure that in the package there was some EULA that discribes what was going to happen when I inserted this into my pc. I did not have access that EULA. It was not presented to me for reveiew at the time of install. It never gave me the oppertunity to prevent it from running. This device executed code on my PC without my permission.
Did they not learn anything from the SONY root kit. First of all, I hate these POS applications that someone thinks is suppose to make my life eaiser. I (my friend in this case) purchased a flash drive, not the U3 software. This thing could have installed anything it wanted, from a rootkit to a keylogger. How do I know there wasn’t some kind of DRM softwar to keep me from coping mp3s to drive? This is way, way out of bounds.
I dont mind if the manufacture of the drive wants to include it on the drive. But there is no way in hell it should run without my express permission.