Prevent other users from accessing your files and folders

The files that you save in your computer under your user account can be accessed by other users through their user accounts. If you want to prevent other users from opening and viewing your files you need to encrypt the files or folders. Users looging in through other accounts will not be able to open these files although they will be able to see them.

To encrypt a file or folder, right click on it, go to Properties – General - Advanced and check the box next to “Encrypt contents to secure data”. Click OK - Apply and wait for Windows to apply the new settings. The encrypted folders and files will be saved in green to make it easy for you to identify them. To encrypt files and folders, your drive must be in a NTFS (New Technology File System) format. To check this, right click the folder, open Properties and check the file type. It can be either in NTFS ot FAT32.Windows XP comes in the NTFS format while older Operating Systems use the FAT32 format.. To learn how to convert files to NTFS from FAT32 check out this link - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881

This is a limited security feature and not a foolproof way to prevent your files from being accessed. Encrypted folders can be copied to a FAT32 type storage device such as a USB drive and opened. They can’t however be opened if they are copied to another NTFS folder or storage device. This feature is useful when you are certain that people using your computer can’t copy files to other devices.