How to set a password on a folder in Windows XP?

Question

How can I set a password on a folder in Windows XP?

Answer 1

The best option would probably be to use something like TrueCrypt.

Answer 2

This is a common enough question (I'm guaranteed to get it from users at least once per quarter myself) and the short answer is that - without some external tool - you can't.

The misconception generally comes from the fact that it's possible to password-"protect" a Word doc; but what's actually going on here is that Word itself is providing the password-"protection". Password protection of files and folders is NOT a feature of the NTFS filesystem.

Now, consider the objective you want to achieve here. I don't think you specifically want to use a password, I think instead that you want to have a specific folder that has access restricted to certain selected individuals. You can do this just as easily, and in a format that's going to be natively supported by the OS (as well as recoverable by an administrator in the event of a DR), so NTFS permissions will meet your requirement precisely.

If on the other hand you want to prevent even an administrator from seeing the folder contents, you need to be prepared to accept the implications, such as not being able to recover it in a DR scenario, losing your data if you forget the password, and so on.

Answer 3

Need more info to help you determine the best option. Like, do you need to encrypt a folder for your use only? Are you sharing the files in the folder w/ others, who are also editing those files? Are you sharing across a LAN or WAN? etc.

Absent that info, I'll throw out some random ideas! Here goes...

• EFS (encrypting file system) - use that if you have XP Pro (not Home); you'll be able to access files in a given encrypted directory transparently, as the decryption key is tied to your Windows login. (Caution - take special care when backing up EFS-encrypted files to also back up the EFS recovery key!)
• Full disk encryption programs, including: TrueCrypt, PGP WDE, etc. Rather than just encryptiong a folder, you'd either encrypt your entire disk (including the operating system itself), or you'd create a virtual drive (mountable as a drive letter), or encrypt a partition on your machine.
• If you're really interested in secure file transfer, then you can use a tool like PGP Desktop or SecureZip for this purpose (or in addition to the above ideas... in other words, the data is encrypted while on your machine as well as in transit).

Answer 4

With TrueCrypt, you create a single file on your computer's hard drive that is encrypted. If someone looks at that file all they see is random data - there's no way to know what that file contains.

Once you "mount" that file using TrueCrypt, and supply the correct password or pass-phrase to unlock it, the contents of that file appear as another drive on your system.

For example, I might have a file "c:\Windows\secretstuff.tc". There's nothing you can do with that file without TrueCrypt and the password to the file. Since I know the password, I can mount it using TrueCrypt and suddenly a new drive appears - say "P:". That drive then contains all my protected files. I can change them, update them, delete them - whatever. Once I'm done, I can hide them all again by simply unmounting the TrueCrypt drive.

It's both simple and elegant.

And it's not tied to Windows, user accounts or anything else. In fact, you can copy your encrypted file to another machine entirely and mount it with TrueCrypt. Even using other systems such as Linux.

And while any encryption is vulnerable if you pick a bad password, the actual encryption algorithms used by TrueCrypt are "industrial strength" and nearly impossible to crack with current technologies.

Answer 5

Microsoft released Microsoft Private Folder a couple of years ago. I am sure a Google search will locate it for you.

Essentially, a double-click would prompt for the password and allow access. Pretty simple.

EDIT - just found it: http://www.msblog.org/2006/07/06/microsoft-private-folder-10/

Answer 6

You can use Folder Password Expert to set a password for a folder in Windows.