In the modern world, perhaps every user of a personal computer is aware of the need to protect personal and confidential data. Not everyone protects their data, and those who do it use a variety of means - from simple archiving of files with a password to completely reliable storage of them on virtual encrypted TrueCrypt disks. Meanwhile, in Windows, you can protect the folder with files using the built-in tools of the operating system.
Necessary
- - active account in Windows;
- - a writable hard disk partition formatted in the NTFS file system.
Instructions
Step 1
Open the Windows program launcher. Click on the "Start" button located on the taskbar. In the menu that appears, click on the "Run" item.
Step 2
Start Windows Explorer. In the Run Program window, in the Open field, enter the string "explorer.exe". Click the "OK" button.
Step 3
In File Explorer, navigate to the folder you want to protect. To do this, expand the "My Computer" section in the tree located in the left pane of Explorer. Next, expand the section corresponding to the device that contains the directory you are looking for. Then, expanding the branches corresponding to the subdirectories, find the required directory. Select a directory element in the directory hierarchy by clicking on it once with the left mouse button. The contents of the directory will be displayed in the right pane of the explorer.
Step 4
Open the folder properties dialog. To do this, right-click on the selected element of the directory tree. In the context menu that appears, click on the "Properties" item.
Step 5
Open the dialog for managing additional folder attributes. In the directory properties dialog switch to the "General" tab. Click on the "Others" button.
Step 6
Begin the process of securing your file folder by encrypting its contents. Set the encryption attribute of the folder contents. In the "Additional Attributes" dialog, activate the "Encrypt content to protect data" checkbox. Click the "OK" button. Click the "Apply" button in the directory properties dialog.
Step 7
Set the protection settings for the contents of the folder. In the "Confirmation of Attributes Change" dialog that appears, activate the "To this folder and to all subfolders and files" switch. This will protect the entire contents of the selected directory. Click the "OK" button.
Step 8
Wait for the end of encryption of the directory contents. The progress will be displayed in the "Apply Attributes …" window. After the encryption is finished, click the "OK" button in the folder properties dialog and close the explorer.
