Editing USB flash drive (section)

===Brand and product promotion===
[[File:Ubuntu USB lanyard.jpg|thumb|100px|[[Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu]]-branded USB flash drive and [[lanyard]]]]

The availability of inexpensive flash drives has enabled them to be used for [[promotion (marketing)|promotional]] and [[marketing]] purposes, particularly within technical and computer-industry circles (e.g., technology [[trade fair|trade shows]]). They may be given away for free, sold at less than wholesale price, or included as a bonus with another purchased product.

Usually, such drives will be custom-stamped with a company's [[logo]], as a form of [[advertising]]. The drive may be blank, or preloaded with graphics, documentation, web links, [[Adobe Flash|Flash]] [[animation]] or other [[multimedia]], and free or demonstration software. Some preloaded drives are read-only, while others are configured with both read-only and user-writable segments. Such dual-partition drives are more expensive.<ref name=cp3>{{cite web |url=http://www.usbpromos.com/data-preloading-custom-usb-promos-usb-drives/ |title=Preloaded Flash Drives &#124; USB Promos |access-date=2016-02-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150423060855/http://www.usbpromos.com/data-preloading-custom-usb-promos-usb-drives |archive-date=2015-04-23 }}</ref>

Flash drives can be set up to automatically launch stored presentations, websites, articles, and any other software immediately on insertion of the drive using the Microsoft Windows [[AutoRun]] feature.<ref name=cp1>[http://www.flashbay.com/usb_flash_drive_autorun_setup.html USB flash drive auto run setup] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100301232343/http://www.flashbay.com/usb_flash_drive_autorun_setup.html |date=2010-03-01 }}, article from Flashbay.com</ref> Autorunning software this way does not work on all computers, and it is normally disabled by security-conscious users.