When several people use one computer, there is a need to limit other users' access to their information. Of course, you can simply hide folders and files containing information that is important to you, but this method still does not provide a 100% guarantee of confidentiality. Read about how to reliably protect your data and maintain confidentiality in today’s article... How to restrict access to important data?
How to deny access to a folder or file?
Sometimes, when several people work on a computer, there is a need to deny access to certain files or folders with data that is important to you. And then the user immediately has a question - how to do this?
Before you deny access to files and folders, you need to make sure that the partitions of your hard drive are formatted in NTFS!!!:
If the hard drive partitions are formatted in NTFS, then you can proceed to setting up limited access.
Go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View and uncheck the option “Use simple file sharing” and click Apply:
Now we find those files and folders to which you want to deny access. Go to the object properties and go to the Security tab:
In this window, you need to select a user whose access rights will be limited to this folder, and select permissions for this user. If you need to completely deny access to an object, then you just need to check the “Full access” item and click Apply:
Now the user whose rights you have defined will see the following when trying to enter the folder you have protected.
A short article about how to deny access to certain folders or limit rights, for example, to delete files in this folder or change files for other users of your PC in the Windows 7 operating system. Article with pictures :)
I think everyone understands why there are restrictions or prohibitions, so I won’t describe why this is necessary.
I’ll say right away that in order to make a restriction on a folder or an entire hard drive (yes, yes, that’s also possible), you need to have several users in the operating system, although you can of course limit access for yourself, but somehow it won’t be very reasonable, constantly opening and closing access, and anyone can do this under your account, if you have it as an administrator, of course.
And so, select the folder and right-click on it - a context menu will open, you need to select “properties”. The following window will open:
Select the "Security" tab and see:
Groups or users - groups or users who have any rights to this folder are displayed here, and what permissions and restrictions they have are displayed below. To change user rights, click on the “change” button. After this, we select the user we “need” and change his rights or delete him altogether so that he does not have any access to this folder, even for reading. If you cannot delete or change user rights, then all rights are inherited from the “parent” and you need to change this, go back to the “security” tab in the folder properties and click on the “advanced” button.
In the “permissions” tab, click on the “change permissions” button and uncheck the “add permission inherited from parent objects” and a warning will immediately appear, if you want to read it, if you don’t want to, then immediately click on the “add” button. Then “ok”, “ok” again and you will find yourself again in the properties in the “security” tab.
Click “change” again and change the rights for the desired users.
By the way, in “advanced” you can change the owners of the folder, in the “owner” tab.
Well, in general, I have already described everything, if something is not clear, then ask questions on the forum.
© Filimoshin V. Yu., 2010
In the age of information technology, the issue of protecting confidential data is very acute. An important role in this is played by the personal computer, where materials not intended for public viewing can often be stored.
This article is intended to help protect personal materials from prying eyes.
Hiding a folder using standard Windows tools
The first method is the simplest and does not require the use of any third-party software.
To hide a folder, you need to open its properties, to do this, right-click on it and select the item in the context menu that appears Properties
In the folder properties window that opens, check the box "Hidden"
And then press the button Other… and in the window that opens, uncheck the box "Allow the contents of files in this folder to be indexed"
In the process of confirming the changes made and closing the folder properties window by pressing the key OK You will be prompted to specify which elements to hide. In most cases, the optimal choice will be “ Apply changes to this folder only»
As a result of these actions, the folder will be hidden in the Windows file manager.
If the folder does not disappear, but becomes translucent, then this means that your system is configured to display hidden files and folders. In this case, you need to do the following: in the file manager menu, follow the path Arrange –> Folder and search options(on Windows 10 File–>Change folder and search options) and in the window that opens go to the tab View, find there and switch the checkbox to the item Do not show hidden files, folders and drives.
To confirm the changes made and close the file manager options window, click OK.
This option will have to be switched every time you need to return the display of the hidden folder(s). We have to put up with this inconvenience if we take into account the fact that this method of hiding is the simplest, which also does not require the use of third-party software.
Hiding a folder using a free program
Using the free program Free Hide Folder (not to be confused with Hide Folders, which is paid for with similar functionality), you can not only completely hide the necessary folders from the system, but also set password protection (on how to create a strong password -) to access them .
When you first launch the program, you will be asked to set a password to access the program, and then will offer to receive a registration code - since the program is completely free and registration is not required, you can safely skip this step by clicking the button Skip.
After these steps, the main program window will open in front of us. To hide the required folder, click the button Add and indicate it. After adding another folder, an information message will pop up, which recommends making a Backup (backup) of the program settings, in case of accidental or intentional deletion of the program. To create a backup copy of your settings, press Backup and specify the path for the saved file. This file will help restore access to hidden folders after reinstalling the program.
Hiding and displaying folders is controlled using the menu keys. The button is responsible for hiding the folder Hide, and for display Unhide.
The program interface is simple and not overloaded with controls. Thanks to this, mastering it is not difficult even in the absence of translation into Russian.
Shorthand or how to hide a folder with files in a graphic file
This method is based on hiding one file type in another. In the example, this will be an archive that will be hidden in a graphic file.
After merging, the graphic file will still be displayed in the system, but when you open it through the archiver, you will have access to the archived files.
To create such a file, follow the instructions:
1) To hide the desired folder, you must first archive it by selecting the archive format rar or zip. You can set a password for everything else in the archive, which will further protect your data.
In this example we will name the archive hide-files.rar
2) The resulting archive and graphic file with the jpg extension (in this example it will be a file foto.jpg) must be placed in one folder, which in turn should be located closer to the root of the hard drive and have no spaces. In the example this will be the folder C:\join
3) Open the command line, to do this press the key combination Win + R and in the window that opens, enter cmd and press OK.
4) In the command line window that opens, go to the folder with the files to be merged, to do this, enter the command:
COPY /B foto.jpg + hide-files.rar final-foto.jpg
As a result, a graphic file will be created with the name final-foto.jpg, which for an uninformed user will be a regular graphic file.
If the extension of this file is changed from jpg on rar or just open it with an archiver, you will see your archived files.
If joining files using the command line is difficult for you, then you can use the free File Joiner utility that works without installation and supports the Russian language.
The program provides a convenient graphical interface for merging files; do not forget to specify the desired file extension in the path for saving the output file, since by default the resulting file is created without it at all.
Brief summary
This review examined the most popular solutions for hiding files and folders inWindows. We hope that this will be useful to you and will solve all your problems.
If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.
Your computer's hard drive may contain information that you would like to keep hidden. It so happened that it is impossible to provide limited access to files and folders using a password. But there is a possibility of limiting access using user accounts.
You will need
- OS:
- – Windows 7;
- – Windows XP.
Instructions
1. Limit access access to a folder or file in the Windows 7 operating system is allowed using the “User Accounts” tool. The manager has access to each folders, because he is at the head of the user hierarchy. If you decide to close access To folders, and everyone has one account, it makes sense to think about simply entering a password when logging into the system.
2. Select the folder you want to hide and right-click on it. In the context menu that opens, select “Properties”.
3. In the new window, go to the “Security” tab, select a user and click the “Edit” button. You can distribute rights to the selected folder among all users. For example, someone is allowed to view it, someone is allowed to allow its metamorphosis, and it is allowed to completely remove the user from this list.
4. If you cannot change the user rights to view and edit a given folder, then the rights are assigned to the parent directory (root folder). To edit this setting, return to the Security tab and click the Advanced button.
5. In the window that opens, go to the “Permissions” tab, highlight the item prohibiting metamorphosis and click the “Change permissions” button. Uncheck the box “Add permission inherited from parent objects” and repeat the operation again. This way you can hide any directory on your hard drive, including its partitions.
6. In the Windows XP operating system, the same action is performed differently. Click the Start menu, select Control Panel.
7. In the folder that opens, open Folder Options and go to the View tab. Uncheck the box “Apply light universal access to files" and click the "Apply" and "OK" buttons.
8. Right-click on the folder you want to hide and select Properties. In the folder properties window, go to the “Security” tab, select the user who will be limited access, and check the “Deny” or “Allow” column when you want to remove the block from viewing this directory.
9. Click the "Apply" and "OK" buttons to save the settings changes access A.
There are many different ways to prevent access to the main information. Windows operating systems have built-in ransomware. Their use allows you to properly protect certain sources.
You will need
- DirLock.
Instructions
1. Turn on your computer with the Windows operating system installed. Log in using your standard account.
2. Please note that after directories are blocked, you will only be able to open them using this account. If there are no other accounts on your computer, create them yourself to ensure access other users to this system.
3. Open the My Computer menu. Go to that folder, which contains the main files. Right-click on its icon and open the directory properties.
4. Go to the “General” tab and open the “Advanced” submenu. Check the box next to “Encrypt content to protect data.” Click Ok and wait for a new window to appear.
5. Specify the "Apply for subfiles and subdirectories" option. Wait for the system to apply metamorphosis. If there are other accounts with manager rights on this computer, disable them. With their support, users can access your files.
6. To increase the level of information security, install a third-party application, say the DirLock program. Restart your computer after completing this procedure.
7. Go to the required folder using Windows Explorer features. Right-click on the directory icon. Once the new menu is created, go to Lock/UnLock. Set a password for this folder.
8. To hide the folder from prying eyes, check the box opposite the Hide item. Apply metamorphoses by clicking Ok.
9. To be able to view and change files located inside a protected folder, select UnLock. Don't forget to repeat the procedure for blocking the directory after you finish working with it.
Often people have information that needs to be hidden. Many people do not want people to have unlimited access to their personal files and folders. A computer can contain a huge amount of important, and sometimes secret, information. There are various ways to keep your “secrets”. There are several to consider.
Hide files using Windows tools
The operating system has the ability to hide files. Of course, this method is the weakest in terms of information security, but an inexperienced user will not be able to bypass it.
- You need to go to the “Control Panel”.
- Here you need to select “Folder Options”.
- In the window that opens, go to the “View” tab. Here you need to make sure that the “Do not show hidden files, folders and drives” checkbox is selected.
Now, if you give any folder the “hidden” attribute, it will not be displayed.
To display your hidden folders, you need to check the “Show hidden files, folders and drives” checkbox in “Folder Options”.
This type of protection is very weak. It can only work on an inexperienced user. Anyone can bypass such protection. Of course, there is a way out - deny access to the Control Panel. But to do this you will have to use additional software or create another account with restrictions, for example, “Guest”.
Security software
There are many programs available to hide files and folders. Let's consider one of them.
Folder Guard Pro
In this example, we will consider the Folder Guard Pro 8.2 program. All versions are similar to each other. They differ only in the presence of additional functions.
1. Install the program. The installation process is simple.
2. After the first launch, the program window will open. Here, Folder Guard will immediately ask you to enter a password, a master password, to access the program settings. You can enter it immediately or later. Note that “Display Password” allows you to display the entered password, that is, it will be visible as you type.
3. Once done, a window will open where you need to specify the folder to protect.
4. You can protect folders from the main program window.
5. In “Project” you should select “Lock with Password”. After this, you can set a password for the folder.
6. Now when you exit the program, a warning window will appear. A closed lock will mean that access to the folder will be immediately denied when you exit Folder Guard. In all other cases, you will be able to view the contents of the folders.
7. To reset your password, you need to go to the security management window. The screenshot is presented below.
Right-click on the protected folder and select “Unprotect”. A similar method is to click on “Lock with password” in the “File” menu item and do not enter anything in the values. The fields must be left blank. There is also “Access” here. This option allows you to simply close access to a folder without entering a password. It includes: full access, read-only and denied access.
In general, the program has many functions that will protect the user. It should also be noted that Folder Guard allows you to block access to the Control Panel. To do this, you need to select the “Permissions” item in the “File” menu and here activate “Allow to use the Control Panel”. The check mark should look like a “cross”
As you can see, the program has great capabilities.
Of course, any defense has its flaws. It is almost impossible to ensure perfect security. But the methods described above will allow you to hide something from a layman. For most users this will be enough!
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