What language/methods to use to listen to removeable drives in Windows?

Question

What language or method would I use to listen to the event when a removeable drive is plugged into the PC?

Answer 1

I guess any language that can work with the Windows API should do. Basically, you listen to the windows message WM_DEVICECHANGE. This alone will let you listen to system-wide messages.

For more specific scenarios look at the API function RegisterDeviceNotification(). Needless to day, C/C++ would be straightforward for this task.

Answer 2

Is your program going to be running as a windows service and waiting? or is putting a startup script on the removable drive an option in this case?

Answer 3

This article on codeproject.com is in C++, and has a solution using the shell change notify register function.