Lock Folder: Protect Data Without Password (Windows)

[Mattius_]

Can you put a password on a windows folder? If not, what is the next best thing?

 

[nazgjunk]

Can you put a password on a windows folder? If not, what is the next best thing?

To do this, you will need at least Windows XP, or Server 2003 (and maybe, maybe NT 4.0, but nobody uses that anyway). I haven't got any experience with those, unfortunately.

The "next best thing" would be folder encryption. There are quite some nice encryption programs which have a function to encrypt and decrypt complete folders.

 

[Triss]

If you have adminitrator rights you can edit what users have access to certain folders. That is also why, if you use a user account, you do not have access to other users home directory.

I am sure it would be way easier on a linux machine...

You will of course need the format on your harddrive to be NTFS.

 

[Anttech]

Any Windows OS that uses NTFS can do what u require..

 

[Pengwuino]

there's a section in windows help that has a step by step that i want to try out later.

 

[-Job-]

As it was mentioned here, if you have NTFS, which you probably do (unless you have Win 9x, Me, or an XP, 2000, 2003 installation on top of an old one) then you can create a folder, right-click on it, select properties, on the security tab you can make sure that yours is the only user account that has read/write access. A couple of things to keep in mind is that there are system accounts that the Operating System or services use which generally you wouldn't have to worry about unless you are using your folder for more than just storing data. Another thing is that i don't believe you can remove the Administrator's rights over any folder you create, that's why it helps if you're the administrator (also because you might need Admin rights to modify the security information).
Encription sounds more like what you need, of course you'd need to encript/decript it everytime you want to use the folder. Maybe a better alternative is to simply compress it with a .zip program and password protect it.

 

[Anttech]

Another thing is that i don't believe you can remove the Administrator's rights over any folder you create, that's why it helps if you're the administrator (also because you might need Admin rights to modify the security information).

You can remove the Administrator... As long as you account is nested in the Admin group...

The problem is that u can if u are the admin take ownership of the folder and then add the admin account back into the ACL's

 

[nazgjunk]

I am sure it would be way easier on a linux machine...

True, because Linux essentially is multi-user. Of course, it mainly depends on the filesystem used.

 

[Bayou Tiger]

As it was mentioned here, if you have NTFS, which you probably do (unless you have Win 9x, Me, or an XP, 2000, 2003 installation on top of an old one) then you can create a folder, right-click on it, select properties, on the security tab you can make sure that yours is the only user account that has read/write access. A couple of things to keep in mind is that there are system accounts that the Operating System or services use which generally you wouldn't have to worry about unless you are using your folder for more than just storing data. Another thing is that i don't believe you can remove the Administrator's rights over any folder you create, that's why it helps if you're the administrator (also because you might need Admin rights to modify the security information).
Encription sounds more like what you need, of course you'd need to encript/decript it everytime you want to use the folder. Maybe a better alternative is to simply compress it with a .zip program and password protect it.

What is the maximum size and number of directory levels for an encrypted zip file? I would like to encrypt the entire directory structure (~8 GB) on my portable USB hard drive without losing the organizational structure.