How do I prevent system volume information files from showing up in my usb flash drive?

Anonymous
2013-10-28T16:13:30+00:00

I recently upgraded to Windows 8.1 once it was made available to me via the app store. I noticed the other day when I had transfered some music to my game console that I had a folder titled "System Volume Information" on the root of my flash drive. I didn't know what it was so I deleted it and went about my business. I did the same thing today and there it was. So I deleted it and plugged it back into my laptop this time only to remove it again and return to the game console to reproduce the issue. Same as before. So I'd like to know step by step how to prevent these folders from being stored in my flash drive. I know these are not harmful files but it is irritating to have them stored on the flash drive. I don't want to have to constantly delete it all the time either. Especially when I know this used to never be an issue before.

I saw this and was able to make the files visable but I was confused about what to do in the command prompt.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2014-01-08T02:25:00+00:00

There is a group policy option to turn off this feature. Enable Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Search \ Do not allow locations on removable drives to be added to libraries.

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Anonymous
2014-01-08T11:18:49+00:00

There is a group policy option to turn off this feature. Enable Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Windows Components \ Search \ Do not allow locations on removable drives to be added to libraries.

Thanks for taking the time to investigate this Eliyas. That fix has worked for me. Just a heads up to anyone else reading this post, AFAIK this will only work in Win 8.1 Pro or Enterprise as other Win 8.1 versions do not have GPEDIT

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-06-11T13:10:49+00:00

    Fair point Gladiator. I shouldn't have risen to the bait. I shall withdraw from this discussion.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-06-28T22:10:13+00:00

    Has anybody confirmed that the regedit posted above works?

    "Try adding DWORD value DisableRemovableDriveIndexing = 1 in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Policies/Microsoft/Windows/Windows Search" in the registry and restarting the PC"

    The group policy mentioned does indeed put the same entry in the registry as the regedit version. It worked for a while, but some windows 10 update broke it again and when I format or write to a USB drive the "System Volume Information" folder is again added and cannot be removed. I have confirmed that Disable RemovableDriveIndexing key is still set to 1 but the folder gets added anyway.

    edit: I ran gpupdate /force and rebooted the workstation and now its working again. perhaps I was mistaken about it being broken?? (o, in my case its a domain level group policy setting, but shouldn't matter).

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-16T06:42:36+00:00

    Ran into this after updating Windows 7 Home to Windows 10 Home...all of the flash drives, even the mounted network drives, suddenly carry the System Volume Information folder containing at the bare minimum a WPSettings.dat file. (Even on the network-based pCloud storage system the d*mned thing is created!)

    (And to think I used to get annoyed by Windows 7 constantly testing external drives for ReadyBoost...)

    Since it's Home, no policy editor. I added the suggested registry key and rebooted. Still no joy, the folder and file(s) are still created. I can delete them with a command prompt, but they keep coming back. I do not want "Fast Search" enabled on any external drives. I have a real computer, not a phone or tablet (well, ok, I have a number of phones and tablets, none of them running Windows). There has to be some way to convince Windows that, since it's my flash drive/memory card I will decide what goes on it, thank you, so stop sticking the System Volume Information folder and associated files on it, please.

    (This is worse than Apple shoving all the d*mned invisible files on everything!)

    Would appreciate any additional thoughts from anyone on how to make this stop.

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