Can anybody help me to how to do locking of folders in Windows XP?

By locking what I mean is that, If any user tries to open a particular folder or file that is locked, he should be given a error stating that access is not granted.

Also how to do hiding of folders/ files in Windows XP?

To hide a folder, simpily right click on folder and select "properties" and then click the check box called "hidden". Your file will now be hidden.

Locking the folder, I believe, requires a third party software. I messed around with one before but i can think of its name.

Another way to lock stuff so people can not access it is to compress your folder into a .zip or .rar using winzip or winrar. You will have the option to password protect the compressed files.

hmn.... in XP, try double clicking my computer, right click the folder or file, choose sharing and security... Then under the first frame, Local sharing and security, and then make this folder private.... for some reason, however, min eis greyed out, so I'm researching that now.

Thanks for the help. But still the problem is there :-

1) I can't Zip the files everytime I wan't to lock them.

2) For hiding also, I have seen programs like HideFoldersXP.
They provide the actual functionality for folder hiding.

Any comments and help are welcome.

why not use hidefoldersxp?

Thanks for the Q.

Actually, I forgot to mention that I had to write a code for the same purpose.

I have used Hide Folders XP and have given a lot of time to figure out how have they done the locking and hiding.

But did not get any hint!

Hi,

If you want to make some folders inaccessible and unbrowsable to any one and have NTFS file system right click on it and choose properties and from the security tab select each account other than your account (and other than owner if you own the folder object) and click on Deny checkbox of full control for those other accounts. (All deny check boxes should get checked automatically.) Then click OK. Now no body other than you can even browse the folders but an administrator can take over the ownership of folder and access it if it is an emergency (just as he can even delete your account if he wants to

Loren Soth

i agree with you on that loren... but what if the file system of a specific computer is NOT NTFS and is instead FAT32... whats the method in that case...

Hi,

Unless you use some 3rd party software which is proven to be resistent against implementation and cryptographic attacks (one which implements 3DES,AES, RSA or alike, not something proprietary) you can't have real data security on a FAT32 file system. Even on NTFS w/ security settings as I described it only takes a boot from CD or USB (w/ Linux or BartPE boot cd) to access those NTFS protected files. Only native and efficent solution is actually Encrypted file system which is available on NTFS and makes impossible to access secured data on absence of matching user identitiy on the original OS and hardware.

Loren Soth

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