Protected Folders/Files

[Darth Revan]

I was wondering is there any way to place a Password on a File/Doc./Folder ect. I'd rather not have several Users logged on and was wondering if you could set the computer to ask ask for a password when you wanted to get into folder such as MY Documents. I am still computer illiterate in certain areas and would appreciate any comments. Thanx

[Statica]

What OS and filesystem are you using? With XP, if you have selected NTFS as your filesystem then your files in Your documents are automatically set to be shown only to you and users with administrator rights. You can further deny other users from access to the files.
Of course it only works if you have good passwords on all your accounts on the computer. It makes infinitely more sense that once you enter your account with your password you shouldn't have to enter a password to see your own files.

Of course, as I asked before, it helps to know your OS and filesystem before we go around explaining how its done.

[Darth Revan]

Oh sorry I am using XP pro and I just want certain things from being messed with cause I let some little cousins on to do Paint and little Dora the Explorer games. And I have no idea what file system I am using. Could you explain what that is. Sorry for my lack of info and knowledge.
Thanx

[Statica]

Ok a quick crash course on need-to-know filesystems for XP Pro. Your OS ships with a choice in 2 operating systems:
FAT32 - which is what comes to us from the old Win95b days. It has been included more for compatibility than anything else. It's the same buggy, feature-poor filesystem that works but barely
NTFS - the new filesystem, and quite possibly the best thing to come with the OS since Windows NT (of course the generation of NTFS has changed over the few OS' that have shipped with it).

What should you be using?
Ideally, I would like to tell everyone to use NTFS if they're using XP. It is robust, stable, and extremely well featured. Issues of performance lags or incompatibilities are nothing more than myths IMO.
Among other things, the best features as relates to you are as follows:
1) it is virtually crash proof. It does a variety of checks and rechecks that provides you extremely high peace of mind. (no more booting up to find a scandisk and your computer report to you that scandisk found 33MB of orphaned files ...)
2) Perfectly seamless file security built right onto the system. It's as efficient and painless as you can get. If you log into the account, then by default you should be getting access to your files. If you have another user account (who is not an administrator), then by default that user does not have access to your files. If the other user is a limited or a guest on the system - even better, they get denied access to critical system files as well. .. its really quite efficient, even if my explanation of it just skims the surface.

What filesystem am I using right now?
Go to My computer, and right click on any drive (say C drive), and do properties. Right there on the General Tab, you should see the filesystem.

What to do if you are using FAT32 but might just as well be using NTFS?
Well that becomes a slightly longer step, but either post back here or check the Win2l/XP forum for converting FAT32->NTFS.

You are using NTFS now what?
The easiest thing you could do is to create a new account for your cousins, and give them limited user priveleges. That would not only prevent access to your files but also prevent them from doing anything drastic to your computer. And please remember to password your account. It might be a bit of a hassle to log in, but its well worth it.

Further securing a folder... quick method...
First thing to do is to turn off Simple file sharing .. My computer > Tools > Folder options > View tab > Scroll to the very end .. and uncheck Use simple file sharing.
While we're there, I'd recommend rechecking that you dont use the following settings .. that seem to come by default and is nothing but trouble ..
Uncheck HIDE EXTENSIONS FOR KNOWN FILE TYPES

Say you have users as follows:
Darth (you)
Cousins (them)
and you want to protect a folder.
Right click on the folder and go to properties > go to the SECURITY TAB
You should see a bunch of names and what they can do with your folder > click the ADD button, and enter the username : COUSINS
Click the check names for good measure and then click ADD
You should see cousins added to the list, now just click the DENY by the full control box to set a deny on all of them.
Its that simple.
Also go through the options available, and familiarize yourself, there are various options you have available for you to set security restrictions.

HTH

[Darth Revan]

Thanx statica that was exactly what I was looking for. Sorry for the post in the wrong section.

[Statica]

No worries, that's what we're here for. Let us know how it works out for you.
As I said, don't sweat it if you dont have NTFS currently as the filesystem on your partitions; the convert command is a non-destructive method to convert FAT32 to NTFS. That is if you dont really need FAT32. Search your Windows help for information on the convert command.

Cheers

[Darth Revan]

Thanx it is NTFS file system I did what you said and it seems to be working. I'll post back if they somehow do somthing.