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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Control who can read or change your files and folders

Key words:
Edit file and folder permission , Manage Groups and users policies , Protect files and folders, manage what limited user account on windows xp can see or not.

Hi Friends,
This method already tested on Windows xp, but I am not sure about Vista or 7 ....
The below method will help you control the privileges of a specified folder or file. And that will allow you manage which user account can read/edit specified file.
So if you deny a user account access to a folder named " a ", when this user log in and try to open this folder an error message will appears for him.

Small Note-- the user account you trying to restrict his access to a folder must be a limited account, so he can't retrieve access again. Or at least this user should be not very powerful in windows privacy and editing them.

We will start now with two main steps, and some sub-steps.
>> Creating User Group and adding user account.
>> Edit permissions and privileges.

Let's Start
1. Right click on My Computer icon and select Manage.
2. From Computer Management select Local Users and Groups.
3. Right click on Groups and select New Group.
4. Enter the group name e.g. new and description (optional) and click Create.
5. You can add users to this group, and that done by two ways. First way by clicking on Users (in tree view) and right click on the user account you want to add e.g. testuser and then select properties and select Member Of tab. After that click on Add button and type new and then OK.
Now this user become a member of new group.

Second way similar to previous one, it is done from Groups (in tree view). Right click on new group and select add to group.
P.S: Now testuser become a member of two groups (Users , new), so there is some thing important you should know. If we lock the new group access to folder (let's say it is the folder I want to make it unreadable via testuser) , that means all the member of new group will not have any access to folder.

To view the members of a group, click on Groups (in tree view). Right click on a group and select properties.
To view the groups that test user registered, click on Users (in tree view). Right click on the user account and select properties then select Member Of.
6. Now we will start second part. We will change privileges of accessing folder. Right Click on any folder e.g. folder and select properties.
7. Select Security tab, but don't change any permission for a user or group you don't aware of. So be careful here.

8. In Security tab select Add button and type new then OK.
9. Now new added to the upper table, click it and then edit permission like you want in the lower table then press Apply.
So now you can do steps 6-9 for all of your folders that you don't want any one to edit/read. And also add any new user to new group we created together, so this user will inherit all privileges from the new group.

If you got any other ideas or some thing to say, I will be glad to reply your comments.

See ya friends.

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