[How To] Create Your Own Autorun CD/DVD Disc

Revisions:

6-28-09:  Initial release.

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What did I do this weekend?  I easily spent 3+ hours talking to a fellow youtube watcher on MSN explaining how to create an autorun Microsoft Office 2k3 disc so that when his uncle puts the disc into his PC, the autorun will automatically run the setup.exe file and everything will be good.

God, why is something so simple take so long?

This really is epic failure.  Here is the story.  Let’s call my new friend “Bob”.

Bob has an uncle.  His uncle is very computer illerate.  Probably doesn’t know what a mouse is except the ones he finds in a mouse trap. >_>   Anyway, Bob wants to make a Office 2003 disc for his uncle so that when it is inserted into the PC, the program will automatically run.

What is the problem?  The problem is that Bob copied a friend’s Office 2k3 disc, but it wasn’t a perfect copy.  Due to copyright protections, Bob did something special to make his own special rip.  What did he do exactly?  That is not important.  What is important is that in the end, he had Office 2k3 files and no autorun.inf file for Windows to boot from.

After talking to Bob and trying to understand all his screenshots and the contents of the autorun.inf file, I went through several tests of my own to create sample ISO files with a sample autorun.inf file and it works!

This is what you need to do:

1) Create a autorun.inf  file.  Use notepad.

2) In that autorun.inf file, it will follow a structure like the one shown below or something similar:

[autorun]
OPEN=SETUP.EXE /AUTORUN
ICON=SETUP.EXE,1

Here you can see the syntax of the autorun feature.  I have told it on this particular disc is to run the “setup.exe” file, and to have the icon of the disc pointed to “setup.exe”.  As well as the parameters, you do not have to be concerned with it.  However, if you want to learn what they mean, you can find out more detail in the link below:

http://autorun.moonvalley.com/autoruninf.htm

Now in a program like PowerIso, drag all your files along with your autorun.inf file and save it to a .ISO file.  From there, burn it and you should be good to go!  Below is the contents of my Office 2k3 disc, as well as what the autorun.inf looks like.

If you still have issues, leave a comment. Just promise me it won’t take more than 7 hours of troubleshooting!

What was the solution to the story?  It turns out that Bob downloaded a torrent copy of Office 2k3 in a matter of minutes, burnt it, and the autorun worked fine.  Lesson: If it takes more than 1 hour to get something to work, just torrent it and be done with it. :0

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