• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Can I Password protect folders?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

TekeTorvo

Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2003
Location
Egypt
I have some folders that, I would really like to stay my own business. Bank statements, Tax Returns, Yada Yada....I am looking for a program to add a password protection to a few folders. I have windowsXP Pro. The OS I have may already be bale to do what I want, and if so, how do I enable it?


Any ideas?
 
Oh yes I'd love to know this too, I got a few folders with info in it that I'd rather not be wide open also.
 
TekeTorvo said:
I have windowsXP Pro. The OS I have may already be bale to do what I want, and if so, how do I enable it?
In XP this is done with NTFS permissions...the password protection of a folder or file is provided by the file attributes and user rights set on specific objects.

You can however set up a compressed folder with password protection (by either right clicking on the desktop and selecting New-->Compressed Folder, or (My Computer | File menu | New | Compressed Folder)...you can then open the compressed folder that you want to password protect. On the File menu, click "Add a Password" | In the "Password" box, type the password that you want to use | Type the same password in the "Confirm Password" box, and then click OK.

There's a program called Folder Guard which I believe you can use to actually password protect a folder in XP. You can find it here...

http://www.winability.com/folderguard

If you'd like to learn more about file/folder permissions in XP Home/Pro, I've included a link to a MSKB article which describes permissions in detail...

HOW TO: Set, View, Change, or Remove File and Folder Permissions in Windows XP

The two reference links at the bottom of the page are also very helpful regarding permissions and password-protection.

Since you're running XP Pro, you don't need to worry about this...but for those that are running the Home version, they can get around the "Simple File Sharing" issue by booting up in Safe Mode (use NTFS permissions to restrict access to a folder). Otherwise, if they don't mind using text interface commands, they can use the cacls.exe command line tool (located in ...%Systemroot%\System32) in normal mode to modify the permissions.
 
Last edited:
Back