Passwords for folders

RS_MCP

Is it possible to set passwords for your personal folders on Windows XP Professional.

I am sure, I have seen this configuration used somewhere.

Maybe I am dreaming but I thought I would ask.

Many Thanks,

Raj

Magnum2544

I think that the only way (if you were doing it on a workgroup computer) would be to use some kind of third party program.

I might be wrong, and I apologize if I am, but I'm pretty sure of that.

The utilization of individual, passworded user accounts, permissions, and EFS is the solution for folder protection.

Sie

Few Questions:

Are you using the computer on a workgroup or domain?

Is it a stand alone computer?

Do other people use this computer?

What account types are the other users? (Admin, limited?)

And by Personal Folders do you imply folders within the folder structure or Personal Folders within Outlook?

RS_MCP

Sie wrote:

Few Questions:

Are you using the computer on a workgroup or domain?

Is it a stand alone computer?

Do other people use this computer?

What account types are the other users? (Admin, limited?)

And by Personal Folders do you imply folders within the folder structure or Personal Folders within Outlook?

1. Workgroup
2. 4 Users on this computer.
3. Currently all admin accounts but will restrict soon.
4. Personal Folders within the folder structure.

Raj

royal

This reminds me of a couple years ago (not sure if it was that long). Microsoft released this feature in a Windows Update and tons of admins all over the world flipped. Imagine the amount of help desk calls you'll get from users forgetting their passwords to folders. It's bad enough if you're not using something like smart cards and users forget their Windows passwords. But now allowing users to add different passwords to different folders!!!!!!

Sie

If the others user accounts are limited account and your is an admin account then they wont be able to access your "My Documents" folder by default.

If you remove the NTFS permissions for their accounts and only add your own this would do it for all other folders.

Therefor if you have a password setup to log into the machine only people knowing that password could access it.

As for password protecting a specific folder or when all users are admins I believe you will need a 3rd Party Utility, however I have never used one of these so couldnt suggest a good one.

Another thought is to enable EFS on the folder....

RS_MCP

Sie wrote:

If the others user accounts are limited account and your is an admin account then they wont be able to access your "My Documents" folder by default.

If you remove the NTFS permissions for their accounts and only add your own this would do it for all other folders.

Therefor if you have a password setup to log into the machine only people knowing that password could access it.

As for password protecting a specific folder or when all users are admins I believe you will need a 3rd Party Utility, however I have never used one of these so couldnt suggest a good one.

Another thought is to enable EFS on the folder....

How does the EFS actually work and tighten security?

Raj

Sie

EFS encrypts the data and only the user encrypting the data would be able to view the contents.
(Unless you assign another recovery agent or export the certificate and assign to another user but I feel thats outside the scope of your question)

As far as I can remember within a workgroup on an XP machine there is no default recovery agent and you would have to create one if you needed someone else to view the files other than the person encrypting them.

So in essence you can enable EFS and the other users would not be able to view the files contents.

This is obtained easily by Right Clicking on the Folder and selecting Advanced on the General Tab. From here select the 'Encrypt Contents to Secure Data'.

Do note however if you remove your user account it can be more complicated to gain access back to the files.

EFS is explained here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223316

[edit
Note: Compressed and Encryption cannot be enabled at the same time.
/edit]