Question USB drives blocked on my work PC Win 10

[pete6032]

Is there some kind of group policy that blocks access to USB flash drives? When I plug a flash drive into my work PC I hear the "USB device connected" tone in Win 10 but it doesn't show up in My Computer. It does show up in device manager and Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions, so I know the drive works. Is my employer blocking them somehow?

 

[Tech Junky]

Yup.. GP is where you can disable access to prevent virus / IP / etc. from being introduced / removed from the company network. If it shows up to be formatted there's probably some encryption being added during the process to prevent it from being accessed from a non-work PC as well.

 

[Iron Woode]

in some businesses it is grounds for dismissal to bring in a USB stick and insert it into a work computer.

 

[pete6032]

in some businesses it is grounds for dismissal to bring in a USB stick and insert it into a work computer.

I can literally upgrade my computer to Windows 11 (I am set up as an administrator), but I can't use a USB flash drive into my computer.

 

[nerp]

I can literally upgrade my computer to Windows 11 (I am set up as an administrator), but I can't use a USB flash drive into my computer.

In that case you can probably change the local group policy and reenable USB drives via gpedit.msc

 

[tcsenter]

Could it be as simple as "Hide Empty Drives" being checked Explorer folder options?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Shouldn't the OP be asking whoever the office IT incharge is, about using his USB drive? I have a bad feeling about this.

 

[pcgeek11]

Shouldn't the OP be asking whoever the office IT incharge is, about using his USB drive? I have a bad feeling about this.

Where I worked before retirement we had USB Devices that were owned by the IT Department and kept in a safe. They could be checked out to qualified persons Engineers, Electronics techs, etc.. for backups and transferring data to equipment that only had USB Connectivity.

 

[igor_kavinski]

USBs can be very dangerous. I once had to stay up all night because some unidentified idiot took an office USB home and brought a virus that spread to the server through a shared folder. The virus infected some critical EXE file on the server, causing it to bluescreen upon startup. The server had ESET antivirus on it but that useless piece of crap didn't protect the server. Microsoft Security Essentials (Windows Defender) on my PC caught the virus as soon as I opened the infected network share. I spent the night trying to convince my manager to ditch this antivirus while the techies restored the server. It fell on deaf ears because almost 10 years later, we still have ESET.

 

[Tech Junky]

And I'd you didn't run Windows it wouldn't be an issue because nothing else runs exe extensions.

 

[sdifox]

Is there some kind of group policy that blocks access to USB flash drives? When I plug a flash drive into my work PC I hear the "USB device connected" tone in Win 10 but it doesn't show up in My Computer. It does show up in device manager and Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions, so I know the drive works. Is my employer blocking them somehow?

This has been standard for at least 15, if not 20 years lol.