Thread: Keep files private

I Would like to keep some files on my computer protected with a password. The computer has Windows XP Home edition installed.

There are various ways to keep files private on a computer. Creating separate
user accounts for Windows with files marked as private is one of the easiest ways of doing this.First, create new accounts for the other users of the computer. Click the Start button and then Control Panel. Left-click User Accounts and then Create a new account. Type a name for the account and then click Next. Select Limited as the account type and then click the Create Account button. Repeat this for as many accounts as are needed.

The next step is for each user to log in and set a password on their account. When adding a password to an existing account, be aware that doing so will remove any stored passwords in Internet Explorer. Left-click the icon for the new user account once and then click the Create a password link. Enter the password in both the two top boxes and then type a hint. This is public so it should not be too obvious. Click Create Password.

The next window asks if the files and folders should be made private from limited users. Click the button that says Yes, Make Private. Protecting files in this way is not fail-safe because it may still be possible to access them.

A safer alternative is to scramble the contents of the files so that they can only be read with a password, this is called encryption. There are many programs for doing this but Steganos Safe One is one of the easiest to use. Download the installation file and run the installation wizard. Safe One will launch automatically after installation. Click the 'Create' icon in the main part of the window and then click Next twice. Give the new drive a meaningful name and select a driv.e letter.

Click Next two more times. Change the size if this is likely to be a problem and click Next again. Enter the password - we recommend making sure this is considered safe by Steganos and it is written down somewhere safe. The drive will be created and then opened automatically. It can now be used like a normal drive and then closed with the Steganos Safe One window. Once it is closed, the files can only be accessed with the correct password.

Bear in mind that iffiles are kept in this way, there is no practical way to recover them if the password is lost or forgotten. We would strongly recommend keeping a backup of the files on a USB memory key, CD or DVD in a safe place to avoid losing them.