basic password protection per folder

bwillford

Trying to get a recommended software to do the follow...

Basically need to password protect by folder for a shared folder on a windows 7 home premium computer....

Not looking for anything fancy just if you try to open a folder you have to enter a password first...

Any ideas?

Thanks Guys!

RobertKaucher

Ctreating local user accounts would not be ok for you? But this strikes me as a moment where I need to ask what are you trying to do (explain the situation/process)?

QHalo

Zip the folder, password protect it, delete the folder or empty the contents. Add to the zip as needed. Simple yet effective.

Devilsbane

QHalo wrote: »

Zip the folder, password protect it, delete the folder or empty the contents. Add to the zip as needed. Simple yet effective.

This is really the only way I know of to password protect a file.

As Robert points out, are these people using different user accounts? You could lock this down with permissions.

crrussell3

Have you looked at encryption? Bitlocker or Truecrypt would be my suggestions.

bwillford

Sounds like seperate accounts and permissions might be the only possible way..

Basically just setup as a file server for PDF files..

It is just a PC with a scanner attached to it.. any employee can come up and scan to pdf and save to a folder... around 10 different employee's are mapped to the shared drive so they can retreive pdf from their computers.

I had never setup accounts/permissions because these files are not suppose to be private..

Now the need is basically just that one certain folder will require a password to enter. The data within will not be *that* private so not looking for any high tech encryption just something basic to keep people from accidently adding files to the folder, delete files, or alter files.

Seems like accounts/permissions, although the correct way, is kinda overkill

Thanks tho guys!

[Deleted User]

bwillford wrote: »

Sounds like seperate accounts and permissions might be the only possible way..

Basically just setup as a file server for PDF files..

It is just a PC with a scanner attached to it.. any employee can come up and scan to pdf and save to a folder... around 10 different employee's are mapped to the shared drive so they can retreive pdf from their computers.

I had never setup accounts/permissions because these files are not suppose to be private..

Now the need is basically just that one certain folder will require a password to enter. The data within will not be *that* private so not looking for any high tech encryption just something basic to keep people from accidently adding files to the folder, delete files, or alter files.

Seems like accounts/permissions, although the correct way, is kinda overkill

Thanks tho guys!

It's not really overkill. This situation is precisely the intent of permissions. Do you ever plan to move up from your current role? I think you've got a great learning opportunity on your hands. Permissions are used in almost every environment so learning to use them is a valuable skill. If you have any problems, feel free to ask questions. There are a lot of great people on here to answer your questions

Devilsbane

xmalachi wrote: »

It's not really overkill. This situation is precisely the intent of permissions. Do you ever plan to move up from your current role? I think you've got a great learning opportunity on your hands. Permissions are used in almost every environment so learning to use them is a valuable skill.

The only reason this seems like overkill is because you didn't implement permissions from the start. This is probably what you should have had going all along and then this solution would be a no brainer.

You don't even need to implement an account for every person. You could do one with access to this folder and one without.

Is it possible to create a shortcut icon that is going to run a command like this? runas /user:username explorer.exe "C:\documents and settings"

runas /user:username explorer.exe works and explorer.exe "C:\documents and settings" works but they don't seem to work together. If you could write this then they double click, enter password, and then the folder opens under that user's credentials.

bwillford

Well I went ahead and did the permissions since the only third party software I found didn't seem worth the price.

I do know/understand permissions... There is no room for growth in my current job, I am the system administrator and over the IT here... Not sure how this relates to my question though?

Basically what I meant by overkill was that these are not *secure* documents. There was only 1 folder that needed a password to access... So basically now I had to give 20 different users the password, I am sure I will be getting calls for people who forget, and they have to take the time to login and load the application instead of just leaving the scanner application up at all times..

Thanks for the advice though I guessed that was going to be what everyone said but hoped for a quick easy route.. Lazy I know..

rsutton

bwillford wrote: »

Well I went ahead and did the permissions since the only third party software I found didn't seem worth the price.

You must not have looked at Truecrypt as someone recommended. It is top notch encryption software and you can't beat the price.

Devilsbane

The syntax of the command is runas /user:username "explorer.exe C:\documents and settings"

It was a matter of placing the quotes, has to be around the full command not just the location. In my testing this works with my username but doesn't work when I have a coworker try when I log in. It will succeed for the coworker when doing a very similar command runas /user:username calc.exe so I'm not sure why this is...

If this works, you could even create it into a script to prompt the user to enter their username, then the password, and then open the explorer window to streamline the whole thing. No logoff/logon needed. The command will run successfully, but the browser never comes up...

I wrote this to collect a username, launch the calculator under that user and then launch explorer as that user. It works for me on both accounts and the calculator works for the other user but windows explorer never opens. I wonder if this is some sort of protection built into Windows.

@echo off
Echo Enter your username.
SET /P User=[Username:] 
cls
echo Now Opening Calculator
runas /user:%User%@domain calc.exe
pause
cls
echo Now opening Windows Explorer
runas /user:%user%@domain "explorer.exe C:\documents and settings"
pause

Because there is already an instance of explorer running under your current account, you will need to use the /separate switch. The command will look something like this.

Runas /user:username@domain "explorer.exe /separate"

I haven't found a way to include a location to open explorer up to. I'll keep looking into it. I've also read that this has been disabled in vista and above, but I haven't tested.

bwillford

rsutton wrote: »

You must not have looked at Truecrypt as someone recommended. It is top notch encryption software and you can't beat the price.

I did look at Truecrypt, granted i didn't look in any great detail, but my understanding was the folder would have to be mounted/unmounted to secure the files.. This wont work since multiple users access this folder at the same time... correct?

Maybe there was something I missed in what I was reading?

rsutton

bwillford wrote: »

I did look at Truecrypt, granted i didn't look in any great detail, but my understanding was the folder would have to be mounted/unmounted to secure the files.. This wont work since multiple users access this folder at the same time... correct?

Maybe there was something I missed in what I was reading?

You mount the volume just like you would mount any other volume. You can even configure to mount automatically at boot up.