How do I restrict access to drives/files on the family computer?

[Guest]

I'm running XP Pro. I wish to restrict what areas of my computer members of
my family can see. How can I do this? For example, I have work related
stuff on 1 drive/partition, tax information on another, emails and instant
messages, photos, and music. How do I keep people away from some areas (like
the work, personal documents, and tax info) but allow access to other areas
within that same drive (like music, pictures, and videos)? I've tried the
"Sharing" feature, but it requires me to go into each and every subfolder of
a drive, but with about 360 GB of storage, that is a daunting and tedious
task. Is there a way I can password protect drives/folders?

 

[Scott M.]

If you are using XP Pro., then the folders you create when you are logged in
will not be available to any other user when they log is (as long as the
other users are not administrators).

You can see this if you right click a folder and look at the "Sharing &
Security" settings.

 

[Malke]

I'm running XP Pro. I wish to restrict what areas of my computer
members of
my family can see. How can I do this? For example, I have work
related stuff on 1 drive/partition, tax information on another, emails
and instant
messages, photos, and music. How do I keep people away from some
areas (like the work, personal documents, and tax info) but allow
access to other areas
within that same drive (like music, pictures, and videos)? I've tried
the "Sharing" feature, but it requires me to go into each and every
subfolder of a drive, but with about 360 GB of storage, that is a
daunting and tedious
task. Is there a way I can password protect drives/folders?

With XP Pro, you can create extremely fine-grained permissions. Make a
new user group and call it something appropriate, like "Work". Now only
add Administrator and your own account to that group. Set permissions
so that only that group can access the folder(s). Make as many new
groups as you like, but always remember to add Administrator and
yourself as users.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer. I did some further searching and found the answer
and have set things up accordingly. Luckily I was already using NTFS. It
required me to uncheck the "Use simple file sharing" option within "Folder
Options" of the Control panel. Once that was done I was able
to go in and desinate what drives/partitions/folders I wished to share with
any other users.

Thanks again!!!

 

[Malke]

Thanks for your answer. I did some further searching and found the
answer
and have set things up accordingly. Luckily I was already using NTFS.
It required me to uncheck the "Use simple file sharing" option within
"Folder
Options" of the Control panel. Once that was done I was able
to go in and desinate what drives/partitions/folders I wished to share
with any other users.

Thanks again!!!

You are most welcome. And thank *you* for reminding me that the drives
must be formatted NTFS and Simple Sharing disabled. Since I always
install XP on NTFS and disable Simple Sharing, I tend to forget that
not everyone does.

Malke