Folder Protection

[Gitano]

How do I password protect a folder for personal use so in case someone comes across it they have no access into it.

[Ezekiel]

How do I password protect a folder for personal use so in case someone comes across it they have no access into it.

If you have windows XP Pro, right click a directory and click 'encrypt contents' or whatever it's called. After that should be the option to set a password.

If you don't, you can use a separate program to encrypt/decrypt your data. Note that these programs won't be integrated into the operating system - every time you want to decrypt the directory/file you usually have to traverse a lengthy set of menus, and the same for encryption.

There is no way to password protect anything without encryption. People could just bypass the OS and find the data they need.

[SyntaXmasteR]

Here is a pretty rediculous method to hide something on your computer, but it works:

*. Create a rediculously deep directory:
%systemroot%\WinUpdate\Security\Microsoft\Software\8086\processor\info\help\

2. Place your files in this folder

*. Follow this:
Right Click my computer, select Manage. Select the Advanced Tab, then click Envoronment Variables. Scroll down the system variables list until you see the variable named Path. Highlight Path and click Edit. At the end of Variable Value add a ; colon followed by the path to your folder. It would look like this:

Before My Addition-


%SystemRoot%\system*2;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System*2\Wbem;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\;


After My Addition-


%SystemRoot%\system*2;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System*2\Wbem;C:\Program Files\QuickTime\QTSystem\;%systemroot%\WinUpdate\Security\Microsoft\Software\8086\processor\info\hel p\;


This way you can access all of your programs/documents by simply going to the command prompt and typing in the name of the file you are opening. The computer will be defaulted to search the "Path" variable and launch the program/document.

Its not encryption by any means, but you can hide stuff while still having easy access to it.

Just my $0.02

[Gitano]

I am gonna try them out. appreciate the feedback.

[Ezekiel]

The thing with hiding your files in deeply hidden directories is that you can get programs which show the file size of a directory and all subdirectories - so you can keep following the huge size through all the obscure directory names until you reach the stash of secret data. Some programs even use different color brightnesses to show how big a folder is; darker if large, lighter if small, so you can follow the dark colors. That's assuming the files are reasonably big.

[SyntaXmasteR]

Ohhh that is definately not meant to be used for hiding documents from a detective or expert user, just protect you from someone accidentally running accross files they are not meant to see.

I've tried a few of those encryption programs and they can really be a pain in the @$$. If you can wait until Windows Vista comes out you can rely on Bit Locker (http://www.vistahunt.com/truth-about-windows-vista-security-revealed.html) to protect your data. Even if someone else steals your hard drive, they will not be able to access any data.