Close access to folders in Windows 7. How to hide or restrict access to folders in Windows - several methods

A short article about how to deny access to certain folders or limit rights, for example, to delete files in this folder or change files for other users of your PC in the Windows 7 operating system. Article with pictures :)

I think everyone understands why there are restrictions or prohibitions, so I won’t describe why this is necessary.

I’ll say right away that in order to make a restriction on a folder or an entire hard drive (yes, yes, that’s also possible), you need to have several users in the operating system, although you can of course limit access for yourself, but somehow it won’t be very reasonable, constantly opening and closing access, and anyone can do this under your account, if you have it as an administrator, of course.

And so, select the folder and click right click mouse on it - a context menu will open, you need to select “properties”. The following window will open:

Select the "Security" tab and see:

Groups or users - groups or users who have any rights to this folder are displayed here, and what permissions and restrictions they have are displayed below. To change user rights, click on the “change” button. After this, we select the user we “need” and change his rights or delete him altogether so that he does not have any access to this folder, even for reading. If you cannot delete or change user rights, then all rights are inherited from the “parent” and you need to change this, go back to the “security” tab in the folder properties and click on the “advanced” button.

In the “permissions” tab, click on the “change permissions” button and uncheck the “add permission inherited from parent objects” and a warning will immediately appear, if you want to read it, if you don’t want to, then immediately click on the “add” button. Then “ok”, “ok” again and you will find yourself again in the properties in the “security” tab.

Click “change” again and change the rights for the desired users.

By the way, in “advanced” you can change the owners of the folder, in the “owner” tab.

Well, in general, I have already described everything, if something is not clear, then ask questions on the forum.

© Filimoshin V. Yu., 2010

When several people use one computer, there is a need to limit other users' access to their information. Of course, you can simply hide folders and files containing information that is important to you, but this method still does not provide a 100% guarantee of confidentiality. Read about how to reliably protect your data and maintain confidentiality in today’s article... How to restrict access to important data?

How to deny access to a folder or file?

Sometimes, when several people work on a computer, there is a need to deny access to certain files or folders with data important to you. And then the user immediately has a question - how to do this?

Before you deny access to files and folders, you need to make sure that the partitions of your hard drive are formatted in NTFS!!!:

If sections of hard disks are formatted in NTFS, then you can proceed to setting up limited access.

Go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View and remove the check mark from the item \”Use simple general access to files” and click Apply:

Now we find those files and folders to which you want to deny access. Go to the object properties and go to the Security tab:

In this window, you need to select a user whose access rights will be limited to this folder, and select permissions for given user. If you need to completely deny access to an object, then you just need to check the “Full access” item and click Apply:

Now the user whose rights you have defined will see the following when trying to enter the folder you have protected.

In the century information technologies The issue of protecting confidential data is very acute. Plays an important role in this Personal Computer, where materials not intended for public viewing can often be stored.
This article is intended to help protect personal materials from prying eyes.

Hiding a folder using standard Windows tools

The first method is the simplest and does not require the use of any third-party software.

To hide a folder, you need to open its properties, to do this, right-click on it and select the item in the context menu that appears Properties

In the folder properties window that opens, check the box "Hidden"

And then press the button Other… and in the window that opens, uncheck the box "Allow the contents of files in this folder to be indexed"

In the process of confirming the changes made and closing the folder properties window by pressing the key OK You will be prompted to specify which elements to hide. In most cases optimal choice will be the option " Apply changes to this folder only»

As a result of these actions, the folder will be hidden in the Windows file manager.

If the folder does not disappear, but becomes translucent, then this means that your system is configured to display hidden files and folders. In this case, you need to do the following: in the menu file manager follow the path Arrange –> Folder and search options(on Windows 10 File–>Change folder and search options) and in the window that opens go to the tab View, find there and switch the checkbox to the item Do not show hidden files, folders and disks.

To confirm the changes made and close the file manager options window, click OK.

This option will have to be switched every time you need to return the display of the hidden folder(s). We have to put up with this inconvenience if we take into account the fact that this method of hiding is the simplest, which also does not require the use of third-party software.

Hiding a folder using a free program

Using free program Free Hide Folder (not to be confused with Hide Folders, which with similar functionality is paid) you can not only completely hide the necessary folders from the system, but also install password protection(about how to create strong password– ) to access them.

When you first launch the program, you will be asked to set a password to access the program, and then will offer to get registration code– since the program is completely free and registration is not required, you can safely skip this step by clicking the button Skip.

After these steps, the main program window will open in front of us. To hide the required folder, click the button Add and indicate it. After adding another folder, it will pop up Announcement, which recommends doing Backup ( backup) program settings, in case of accidental or intentional deletion of the program. To create a backup copy of your settings, press Backup and specify the path for the saved file. This file will help restore access to hidden folders after reinstallation programs.

Hiding and displaying folders is controlled using the menu keys. The button is responsible for hiding the folder Hide, and for display Unhide.

The program interface is simple and not overloaded with controls. Thanks to this, mastering it is not difficult even in the absence of translation into Russian.

Shorthand or how to hide a folder with files in a graphic file

This method is based on hiding one file type in another. In the example, this will be an archive that will be hidden in a graphic file.

After the merger graphic file will still be displayed in the system, but when you open it through the archiver, you will have access to the archived files.

To create such a file, follow the instructions:

1) To hide desired folder it must first be archived by selecting the archive format rar or zip. You can set a password for everything else in the archive, which will further protect your data.

IN in this example we'll call the archive hide-files.rar

2) The resulting archive and graphic file with jpg extension(in this example this will be the file foto.jpg) must be placed in one folder, which in turn should be located closer to the root hard drive and have no spaces. In the example this will be the folder C:\join

3) Open the command line, to do this press the key combination Win + R and in the window that opens, enter cmd and press OK.

4) In the window that opens command line go to the folder with the files to be merged, to do this, enter the command:

COPY /B foto.jpg + hide-files.rar final-foto.jpg

As a result, a graphic file will be created with the name final-foto.jpg, which for an uninformed user will be a regular graphic file.

If the extension of this file is changed from jpg on rar or just open it with an archiver, you will see your archived files.

If joining files using the command line is difficult for you, then you can use the free File Joiner utility that works without installation and supports the Russian language.

The program presents a convenient GUI to combine files, do not forget to specify the desired file extension in the path for saving the output file, since by default the resulting file is created without it at all.

Brief summary

IN this review the most popular solutions for hiding files and folders inWindows. We hope that this will be useful to you and will solve all your problems.

If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.

Hi all! It often happens that all family members use one computer. Everyone can have their own secrets, their own confidential information, which I would like to hide from prying eyes and store in a safe place so that no one else has access to this place except the owner himself. This secret can be anything: documents, photos, videos, music files, etc.

In this tutorial we will talk about one of the ways you can restrict access to a specific folder or drive.

It is worth noting that to implement this method, you need to have at least two accounts on your computer (for example, your account and the “Guest” account). Moreover, only you should know the password to your account. The instructions described in this lesson will not make any sense if other people know your login password.

If one account is created on the computer, then you can limit access to the folder or disk only to yourself, which is meaningless by definition.

And of course, in order to perform all the actions described below, you must have administrator rights.

This lesson is suitable for any line of Windows operating systems, the only thing is that Windows XP requires preliminary configuration.

So, let's begin.

Setting up Windows XP to control access to folders and files

IN operating system Windows XP hides the option to manage folder and file restrictions by default. We turn it on via Start > Control Panel > Folder Options.

If in your case the control panel looks different from the one shown below, then in the upper left corner of the window click on the link Switch to classic view.

Go to the tab View and uncheck Use simple file sharing (recommended), then click OK.

Restricting access to the folder

Right-click on the folder to which you want to restrict access, and from the drop-down context menu choose Properties.

At the top of the properties window, go to the tab Safety.

Here in the field Groups and users, displays users who have certain rights to this folder. And just below the checkboxes are permissions and prohibitions specific user.

In order to add restrictions to a folder for any user, you need to click the button Change.

In the next window, click the button Add.

Now, using the search, you need to find all existing users and all groups on this computer. So let's click on the button Search. In the results you need to find the user (account) whose rights to the folder should be limited.

In my case, besides me, you can also log into the system under account"Guest", so I will restrict access to the folder specifically for him.

After you select the account you need to restrict rights from the list, stand on it (that is, left-click) and click the button above OK. Once again OK.

Now, in the field Groups and users, add an account for which you need to restrict rights (in my case it is “Guest”). Click on this account with the left mouse button and below, in the same window, check the boxes, thereby allowing or prohibiting any actions.

In my case, I deny the Guest user absolutely everything. These restrictions will not allow him to even open the folder.

That's all. Thus, we have blocked access to the folder for a specific user. This means that you will be able to access the folder using your account, but the system will deny access to the user for whom you have done all of the above.

Very often a situation arises when several people work at a computer and it is desirable that access to personal files and each user's folders were restricted to other users. You can deny access altogether, or you can limit it: for example, one user needs to open full access, for others - only for reading, and for others, prohibited altogether.

Why do this, probably each of you understands without my prompting. Here's how it's correct restrict access to files in Windows 7, not everyone knows. Therefore, we will analyze this process in great detail.

restricting access to files and folders in Windows 7

To begin with, of course, we need to decide on the object to which we will restrict access. So, we selected a file or folder and proceed according to the following algorithm:

1. Right-click on the object (file or folder) and select “Properties”.

2. In the window that opens, select the “Security” tab. It is here that user rights to access a specific file or folder are determined.

The top area will display all users or user groups created in the system. By clicking on a specific item, you can view and change the rights of a specific user to this object. To completely prevent the user from “touching” specific folder or file, remove it from the top list.

3. If you are unable to delete or change the rights of a specific user, then all of his rights are inherited from the “parent”. To still be able to restrict user rights to a specific object, do the following: go back to the “Security” tab in the file properties and click on the “Advanced” button (under the section displaying user rights (see the figure above).

The window “ Additional parameters security”:

Go to the “Resolution” tab if it does not open for you by default. Next, click on the “Change Resolution” button. Next, uncheck the “Add permission inherited from parent objects” checkbox, after reading the warning message, click on the “Add” button. And then “OK” all the time until you return to the “Security” tab of the file properties.

Now you can change user rights to access a specific object without restrictions.

access permission values

Let's take a closer look at the meaning of specific user rights:

• Full control - everything is quite simple here: you are allowed to perform all operations on the object, including changing the permission and becoming the owner of the object.
• Change – differs from the previous paragraph in that it is allowed to perform only basic operations with the object, i.e. reading, modifying, creating and deleting an object. Changing the permission of the current object and becoming its owner is not allowed.
• Read and Execute– speaks for itself: you can view the contents of an object and run programs.
• List of folder contents– the same as in the previous paragraph, only regarding directories.
• Read – only viewing the object is allowed.
• Write – allows you to create files and write data to them.
• Special permissions– these are permissions that are set by clicking on the “Advanced” button.

special recommendations when setting access rights to files and folders

• I advise you to pay attention to the following:
• If you check the checkbox for a permission with a higher priority, the checkboxes of the dependent permissions are automatically checked.
• Setting the “Deny” permission has a higher priority than “Allow”.
• By changing the permissions for a directory, the permissions for all sub-objects (folders and files) will also automatically change.
• If certain permissions are not available, it means they are being inherited from the parent folder.
• If you do not have the rights to change permissions, then all the checkboxes will not be available to you.
• When changing permissions for groups (for example: “Administrators”, “Users”, “System”), the corresponding permissions for all users of this group will automatically change.
• Do not change permissions for the “System” group; this may disrupt the operation of the operating system.

When changing permissions for a specific object, be careful and careful. Do not change several permissions at once; be sure to check the functionality of the system after making changes.