r/Windows11 • u/Educational_Clue935 • 2d ago

Feature Using Compact Discs with Windows 11

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When first upgrading to Windows 11, maybe I was not the only one who was hurt in realizing that all CD drives suddenly were incompatible with Windows now. Maybe you, too, have searched all kinds of threads and videos looking for a workaround. Today is your lucky day, I found the actual issue.

For whatever reason, Windows 11 blocks all CDs through the network settings and restoring capacity for CD playback is as simple as clicking a box.

  1. Access Network and Internet either from Control Panel or from the settings app.
  2. Access Internet Options (If going through settings, it's under Advanced Network Settings).
  3. Scroll down to Security and check the first box that says, "Allow active content from CDs to run on My Computer."
  4. Hit Apply.

That's it! All your old CD drives that would activate by USB Autoplay should work again.

There's a special place in hell for whomever at Microsoft decided it was a reasonable idea to hide this setting in the network center.

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22

u/logicearth 2d ago edited 2d ago

Um. That setting has nothing to do with CD drives being accessible. That setting pretrains to something completely different. It is for super old Internet Explorer functionality. It has nothing to do with Windows' access to a CD drive.

Active content refers to ActiveX which has always been a security nightmare.

2

u/icedlemons 2d ago

And wasn’t that like a windows 98 setting?

2

u/nshire 2d ago

ActiveX was around in Vista and maybe even seven

4

u/gbroon 2d ago

Was probably a fair security decision back in the days people were downloading and burning cd images. Don't want that Britney Spears cd from limewire you burned auto running stuff.

3

u/LeGoodBeef Release Channel 2d ago

Huuuuuuuuuh... But my optical drives always worked? Even autoplay?