AutoPlay intermittently does not detect removable media or digital cameras

When you connect a digital camera or a digital media reader device to your computer, the computer may recognize the new hardware the first time that you connect it to the computer, but the computer may not recognize it when you connect it to the computer later. When this problem occurs, the AutoPlay dialog box does not appear.

This problem may occur more frequently when users do not have to press CTRL+ALT+DEL and then type their credentials to log on to the computer.

This problem may occur if Explorer.exe tries to register with the ShellHWDetection service to obtain hardware notifications. If the service is not started when it tries to register, registration does not work and the operating system does not receive notification that a camera or a media device is connected to the computer. Because the operating system does not try to register after the service is started, it does not receive a notification until the user logs off and logs back on.

Service pack information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Hotfix information

To resolve this problem, download and run Autofix.exe.

Note The AutoFix utility only works for cameras and devices that can appear in My Computer as Removable Disks, where each device has its own drive letter.

For additional information about how to download Microsoft Support files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Microsoft scanned this file for viruses. Microsoft used the most current virus-detection software that was available on the date that the file was posted. The file is stored on security-enhanced servers that help to prevent any unauthorized changes to the file.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2.