XP SP2 and making USB storage read-only

Windows XP SP 2 added the functionality to make USB block storage devices read-only. In order to do so, navigate to the following key:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Add a DWORD value named "WriteProtect", and set the value to "0" to disable, "1" to enable.

This is not only useful in home (for parents) and corporate (for admins) environments, but would also be useful where data collected during incident response activities, or your tools, are written to a USB-connected thumb drive.

See also:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/sp2otech.mspx#XSLTsection127121120120