So in a week I'm being forced to lend my computer to someone for almost a week. Big problem for me since I'm rather paranoid and don't like the idea of someone screwing around with my files. They are borrowing the computer for the purpose of burning dvds because apparently they can't burn their stuff fast enough(???). I've searched around for awhile and followed a bunch of tutorials for protecting files and folders, but none of them have worked. I've tried setting sharing permissions where everyone but me is denied Read/Write access but the other account can still open the files/folders and do whatever they want with them. How can I protect my stuff?

Goals

• Keep my account
  
• Create account for them to use
  
• Prevent their account from ever opening/seeing folders/files I choose
  

Create a user for them (Control Panel->Users and Groups), then right click on your profile folder (C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>) and go to Security (maybe this doesn't exist in XP MCE?). Hit Add, type the name of the new user. Then change all the permissions to Deny. Now the new user will be unable to access that folder at all.

I've tried using the Security tab already, tried adding a deny for everyone but me, for everyone, and for only guest; each time I could still access the folder regardless what account I used (administrator/limited user/guest). By the way, I'm talking about folders like C:\Website and C:\Program Files\blahblah, I don't know if that makes a difference or not.

Make their account limited, and put a password on the Administrator account accessable in safemode, they pretty much can't do anything after that.

Their account is already limited, just put a password on Administrator account. Is there a step 2? I can still access all files I'm concerned about from their account.

EDIT: On a side note, I've never really noticed before but is safe mode supposed to take almost 3x longer to start up and generally react slower overall?

If I remember correctly, a lot of security features are only in XP Pro..

I was assuming that was the case with the Security tab, but when I looked it up on one of the microsoft reference/help sites it said that it works for Professional and Media Center Edition.

EDIT: This isn't the same article, though it explains more of the permissions. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308419
For some reason when adding users/groups under the security tab the only options I'm given are Full Control, Read, and Write. But when I log onto the guest or limited access account I see many more users/groups listed for said folder, along with the full list of permissions. I can't change them though from limited/guest.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 8 2008, 11:51 pm by Elvang.

There should be something inside the user that you want to keep files hidden on MCE to lock or prevent access to their user folder, but program files is fair game.

You're trying to hide porn aint cha?

I'm trying to protect most of the stuff because I find it rather suspicious that he needs to borrow my computer for a week to 'burn dvds'. For one, my burner has been dead and unhooked for close to two years. He also has like 5 computers running at all times, and has more spare parts than I can count that aren't even opened.

All teh porn is encrypted with mono using a rick roll as the element file xD.

So don't lend him your computer?

I already tried talking my way out of it, if I don't lend him the computer the internet will be disconnected. Normally that'd be meh, its just the internet, but I'm kind of in the middle of several projects. Also, at this point its pissing me off that I can't get the security features to work correctly.

Have you considered dumping the HDD and giving it to him?

If you mean pulling out the hdd then yes, I've thought about it. To me that'd be more suspicious than just locking certain folders though.

No, I mean copying all the stuff to something secure you'd keep, and installing a fresh OS on it.

or maybe skip the reinstall OS part and just delete the files. ask him to come over and do the shit.

How does he have control over your internet access? And if your burner doesn't work, why does he want it?

This.

I'm wondering what the hell you're up to.. if you can force you to give him your computer can't he just extort your password anyway?

My mother is the one who agreed to lend my computer to him for a week, since I made a fuss about it she is the one threatening to disconnect the internet. If he asks for the password to my account I can simply say no, the computer was lent under the impression that it was to be used for burning cds/dvds for a week, and last time I checked you don't need an administrator account to burn things.

I'm stressing over him having access to my files because I'm rather paranoid, and hes the type that would go snooping through everything for the fun of it.
When I said I was paranoid I meant it, when it is at its worst I'll check the closet everytime I enter my room to make sure someone isn't hiding in there, among other things.

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Can't reinstall the OS simply because I can't burn a dvd/cd to install from, and I've already tried installing from a usb stick but my mobo doesn't support booting from usb. When I listed keep my account as a goal I should have expanded on that to mention I didn't want to have to delete/uninstall anything.

Hide all your files in a password protected .rar inside a password protected .7z, then delete both unzipping tools until hes done.

Not to mention, hide this in C:\WINDOWS\Resources\themes and name it Windows Media Center addon. You wont get ANY snooping around if hes dumb

But most importantly, erase all histories too.

Select all your folders that you would like to hide. Compress them into a password protected archive like .rar or .7z. Delete the folders, or their contents. When you get it back, decompress the archive. The archive will overwrite the empty folders or create new ones if you deleted the entire folder.