Hard Drive Files - Hidden

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Lanc1988

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Nov 27, 2003
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I have windows xp professional edition on my computer and I am the administrator. Can I select all the files in the Hard Drive ( C: ) and make them all hidden so limited users can't see them without causing any problems?
 
If you hide only the folders in your root drive then the users will still be able to access the files easily enough. Just click start->run and enter c:\windows or c:\program files. Hiding every single file on your computer will make it pretty difficult to use (not to mention might take a while for your computer to do). Your desktops and start menus will be kind of empty. Also, I'm not sure, but I believe that even a limited user account can still set explorer to show hidden files.

The fact of the matter is that hiding files is not very much of a security measure at all. Since it is not a per-user setting, they will be hidden from you too. If those with whom you share the computer can't be trusted to access the hard drive you really shouldn't be sharing a computer with them.

Why are you trying to hide all the files?
 
Wouldn't it be easier to just to set up a user (or multiple) account and not give them access to most of the folders?

If you know what they're going to run, you can just give them read access to those particular folders and read/write to their own "my documents" folder.

It's been a few years since my windows admin course in college, but I recall that you can create a template account to base all users off of and then alter things slightly as needed per account.

I don't think you can still access files/folders by going command line. If so, then windows security really sucks.
 
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