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I have a friend who has a folder (which I'm about 98% sure is for porn) she wants to make sure her children can't access intentionally and/or accidentally stumble upon the contents of the folder via any assorted convenience features in windows which may save last opened file etc.

I had 4-5 months ago set her up with a 50 gb encrypted drive using a program called TrueCrypt when she asked for this and told her to just mount the drive when she needed it and remember to unmount it after. This seemed to meet her needs, but she just got a new computer with windows 10 and tells me that truecrypt refuses to install on windows 10 with some message about it not being needed any more because windows 10 already supports encrypted folders. she also says the folder in question shows up in her quick access window as a frequently used folder.

Unfortunately for her I'm on a linux box myself, I've not even touched windows 10 and I don't know what options there are for her without using truecrypt. Can anyone recommend a good way of properly hiding the contents of and password protecting her totally-not-porn folder? I doubt she needs the full encryption of truecrypt, just something effective enough that 13 & 15 year old can't figure out how to get around the password/protection.

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  • Zip the folder and put a password in it? And also TrueCrypt is dead and you can try using VeraCrypt being the de-facto replacement for it for now. EDIT: And in regards to "Quick Access" if she "unpin" it off Quick Access - it should not reappear... (and you can change on "Folder Options" and untick the "show recently used files in quick access" and "show frequently used folders in quick access"
    – Darius
    Sep 15, 2016 at 5:38
  • Windows 10 doesn’t support encrypted folders any more than previous versions of Windows did. Depending on the edition, it might have BitLocker though.
    – Daniel B
    Sep 15, 2016 at 5:38
  • @Darius i had mentioned the zip file, but I get the impression the folder is decent size (I had given her a full 50 gigs orringally, though she probably hasn't used all that the point is she wanted a good amount of space just in case, even if I did go overboard on a "why not waste space your not using' philosophy. I figured unzipping and zipping something measured in the gigabytes may take awhile. Though I do thank you for the folder options part. I probably would ahve gotten around to looking that up after I figured out the password half, but you saved me the time of looking :)
    – errah
    Sep 21, 2016 at 18:45

1 Answer 1

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TrueCrypt is no longer maintained, but its successor VeraCrypt runs on Windows 10. (Note that while it can access old TrueCrypt volumes, they might need to be converted to the new format.)

Windows 10 does, however, support separate user accounts (including even parental controls). Keep the main account for the owner, and create an additional one (multiple?) for the children to use. No more poking through private data, no more fights over the wallpaper, etc.

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  • Don't underestimate a 15 year old, just booting from a Linux live-DVD gives them full access to all files when just using NTFS permissions.
    – Peter Hahndorf
    Sep 15, 2016 at 14:56
  • @PeterHahndorf while true, I think there is a limit to the 15 year old's desire to do so. If the folder is porn, which I'm pretty sure it is, there is little reason for the kids to go through much effort to see it, except maybe to embarrass Mom. I know a 15 year old is already viewing a ton of his own porn without needing to sneak his mother's collection. She doesn't need any powerful protection, just enough to make it not worth the kids effort. Of course I get the feeling she thinks if they can't get to her folder they will be cut off from all porn, ...I'll let her have that delusion ;)
    – errah
    Sep 21, 2016 at 18:41

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