Password protect only certain folders in XP Home?

Tim

In Windows XP Home, is there a way to password protect ONLY certain folders, not the entire computer system?

I have my computer on all the time, so setting a general password at the startup screen will do me no good.

I would like to make a folder and place certain files in it and allow access to that folder only with a password or something.

Can that be done?

zero-counter

Tim wrote:

In Windows XP Home, is there a way to password protect ONLY certain folders, not the entire computer system?

I have my computer on all the time, so setting a general password at the startup screen will do me no good.

I would like to make a folder and place certain files in it and allow access to that folder only with a password or something.

Can that be done?

Without using third-party utilities or upgrading to XP Pro or another security concious OS, protecting individual files cannot be done. The NTFS filesystem, which is available in XP Pro, allows what you are asking. With home, the only native security is disabling/enabling network sharing. Honestly, even the password prompt does not do much for logging on when it comes to local machine security.

deicist

You can create a compressed folder and put files in that, then add a password (via file->add a password) to the compressed folder. The compressed folder is just a zip file, but if you remember to add a password again every time you add files to it it's pretty good for keeping things out of prying eyes and I'm pretty sure compressed folders are in XP home as well as pro.

If you're computer is always on, but you're the only person who should be using it why not just turn a screensaver on and set it to ask for password on resume?

Tim

Well, I'm the only one who SHOULD be using this computer, but there are others here on occassion, and what if someone breaks in while I'm not here, etc.

I'll look around in Windows XP Home for this file / add a password thing and see what I can find. Tell me more about that. Is it for Winzip folders only? I use Winzip for some things, usually just opening new files or setting up CPU-Z on a computer.

Windows XP Home comes with the NTFS file system, at least, I have mine set up that way.

Mt_Goat

Simple

Password protect your login and make sure it is "Administrator" then enable the "Guest" login with no password.

Tim

Someone mentioned zip files, so I looked in my Winzip 9.0 utility, and it has an "Encrypt" tab at the top on the screen, so I created a new Winzip folder, put some files in there and gave them a password to open them.

Now they are 256 bit encrypted!

That should do the job of keeping anyone else from opening those files, but I was nervous about putting files in there and deleting the originals, like what if the Winzip lost them or they wouldn't work?

But so far so good.