Home Premium - How do I restrict access to folder/drive

[Deathwing]

Hi I have Windows 7 Home Premium and I am usually the sole user and administrator on the computer. I want to create a Guest account or Standard User account with restricted access so that it cannot do the following:

(1) Access My Documents (not the standard folder but one I created)
(2) Access the internal backup drive E:
(3) Change system settings.

It all looks very complicated and I am not at all sure what to do. Is there any way to do the above with Home Premium?

Or if none of that is possible in Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) is there a program that allows me to prevent other users accessing specified folders/drives?

Preferably freeware but if I have to pay for it I will!

 

[whs]

1. If you have a password on your Admin account, then a user cannot change the system settings without the password.
2. If you want to protect your files/folders, you may use encryption. E.g. like this Protect private data with Truecrypt - Tutorial 1 - Installation or this: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/6169/use-truecrypt-to-secure-your-data/

 

[Deathwing]

Thanks so you are saying standard users and guests cannot change system settings anyway?

How does Truecrypt work? It sounds like it takes a while to encrypt/decrypt an entire drive and doing that on a daily basis might be frustrating. Will I be able to access the encrypted folders and other users unable?

Advanced Folder Guard looks good but at $70 it's a bit expensive for protecting 1 folder and 1 drive. Something like that but cheaper that works on this system would be fantastic.

 

[whs]

There are a lot of free encryption programs on the web. TrueCrypt seems to be one of the more popular ones. Here is some verse of what it does: TrueCrypt - Free Open-Source Disk Encryption - Documentation

 

[Deathwing]

I appreciate the resource - TrueCrypt seems a good workaround, though I'm not keen on having to copy the files to its virtual disk. It doesn't sound workable for a backup drive either.

I'd be happiest just to render the drive/files inaccessible in the Windows environment e.g. by locking access to the relevant folders unless a password is used?

 

[DeaconFrost]

I don't use the Home versions of the OSes, but I'm guessing if you are asking this question, it means that Home Premium doesn't include the security options to restrict access by user account?

 

[Deathwing]

Nope - can't specify by user on Home Premium... which kinda makes having user accounts in the first place rather pointless!

 

[DeaconFrost]

Would an Anytime Upgrade to Pro be out of the question?

 

[Deathwing]

Forgive my ignorance but I do not know what that is. I am guessing it is an upgrade of the operating system to Windows Professional?

Is that expensive, and would that require reinstalling all my applications & games after the upgrade?

 

[Bill2]

Nope - can't specify by user on Home Premium... which kinda makes having user accounts in the first place rather pointless!

I dont know what that means. You should be able to restrict access to drives/files/folders by setting user permissions. Heres a nice pic tut (its for vista but would apply to win7 as well).

How to Deny Access to Files or Folders in Windows Vista - How-To Geek

 

[DeaconFrost]

I don't know the cost offhand, but it basically is an in-place upgrade. You would get a new key, which would be entered into the System properties, and after a reboot, you would have Windows 7 Pro....nothing to reinstall or nothing else to do.

 

[Deathwing]

That how-to walkthrough is brilliant. I came across that window before but totally didn't understand it.

Yes that has helped to deny folder access for the other users, thank you.

 

[logicearth]

Create User...give it a name...go to directory or drive...properties of folder or drive, security tab...edit button if it is there....add....type out name of new user account created....look for "read & execute" click on the far right "deny" checkbox....then look for "write" and do the same thing. Hit ok...you are now done.

Do not alter the Users group permissions. Those will affect everyone including those part of Administrators group.

 

[Keiichi25]

Create User...give it a name...go to directory or drive...properties of folder or drive, security tab...edit button if it is there....add....type out name of new user account created....look for "read & execute" click on the far right "deny" checkbox....then look for "write" and do the same thing. Hit ok...you are now done.

Do not alter the Users group permissions. Those will affect everyone including those part of Administrators group.

Just to Clarify for those who don't know this... In Windows Security, Deny takes Priority over Allow, so the reason he says never do this to Users, is because even through the Administrator should have Full Access, a Deny will override that allowance, since Administrator is also part of the Users group.

If you want to reclassify this, you can also make a group, put the users you don't want to be accessing certain folders into that group and deny them access, just make sure you don't include yourself in that particular group as the administrator.

You can also grant access to said users into a 'secured' folder, but you must use the 'advanced' button in the security tab, uncheck 'inherit from parent', as security from a parent folder inheritance cannot be overriden unless you don't inherit it. It will ask if you want to copy those permissions, if you don't want to set up all the permissions again, click 'yes'. This will at least copy the permissions from the parent folder, but now make it modifiable for the folder you are working with. The one thing you have to note, however, to allow others to get to that folder 'easily', you will need to create a shortcut for them. The short cut should allow them to get to that folder within a secured folder easily, and they will not be able to 'backtrack' if they tried due to permissions.