How to remove and prevent autorun.inf virus

    My gateway laptop has Windows XP Pro installed in it and I am doing some projects. I usually use up most of the memory resources on my gadget by launching too many applications at the same time; which is not recommended. When one of them fails & hangs, I simply press CTRL + ALT + DEL for the task manager window and end the application, or the .exe file under processes tab. It is frustrating when you cannot launch the task manager and it says "Task Manager has been restricted by an administrator". This means my windows registry has been tampered with by malicious viruses.

    What I do next is launch the registry editor by typing "regedit" (without the quotation marks) and pressing the enter key to open it and manually disable the entries prohibiting the launchcing of the task manager. Another way is by starting it through typing at RUN the executable"cmd" or opening the start menu>programs>accessories>command prompt and type "regedit"; but the editor window only opens up for about 10 miliseconds. It is present, however can’t be launched. Your system will restart everytime you launch the command prompt in either way.
Updating my mcafee ver 8.5i with its latest virus definitions and scanning my computer solves the problem, but wait! We’re not done yet. Autorun.inf manually still has to be deleted manually.
There are several viruses that use autorun.inf to spread themselves; such as the Bacalid, which hides itself in ctfmon.exe, and the RavMon.EXE. These viruses set their file attributes to System+Hidden+Read-Only. These attributes make it hard for some anti-viruses programs to detecti them. These viruses save themselves in the root directory of every available drive of the infected computer and run themselves every time you open the drive. Both USB Sticks and CDs are infected by the virus that runs automatically, especially if drive autorun is enabled for the current drives, which is usually by default.

    Autorun.INF is typically used by CD Installers to autoplay their installations, but Hard disks by default should not have AUTORUN.INF in the drive.

    When I am finished updating my anti virus software and scanning the hard drive, I try to display the content of my computer by way of command prompt in my root directory C:\ using the dir /ah command. The following information should then be displayed:

    You can see from this window that drive C contains a hidden file autorun.inf, this is a possibility that the computer is infected. To erase this, restart your windows into Safe Mode with Command Prompt. This is done by rebooting your computer and pressing F8 before windows goes out and select from the advanced options menu. On drive C and all other root directories type the following commands: 1. attrib -h -r -s autorun.inf 2. del autorun.inf
Repeat these steps for all of the other drives root’s directories to disable autorun.inf .

Disable AUTORUN from Registry

    Now you are able to disable the AUTORUN for all drives by configuring the registry. Open the registry by typing regedit.exe to the command prompt (if your still at the command prompt) or execute it in Run and type regedit and press enter. Look for the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer as shown below:

    Double-click the NoDriveAutorun DWORD entry and type the value HEX: FF (255 in Decimal). If the NoDriveAutorun does not exists, you can create it by right-clicking the right side area of the regedit window, then click New->DWord Value -> type NoDriveAutorun. Close the registry and restart the computer. This procedure will disable all the autorun for all drives of your computer and should prevent the autorun function of infected USB drives or CDs and avoid the infection of viruses like the Bacalid and RavMon.exe./Ravmone.exe.
I do hope this helps you in some way. Enjoy!

Thanks to my friend bleuken for sharing his ideas.