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We have a system that we would like to protect against xcopy onto another machine. The system consists of MFC app, some .NET components and lots of configuration files. If we were able to make a strategically selected set of these configuration files unavailable for copying (or useless/encrypted when copied) then we would have effectively achieved this goal. Due to the nature of the system, it has local administrator rights when executing. The platform is windows. In this case it will probably be win7.

I realize that this has little chance of being waterproof as the persons copying the software will have access to the operating system as administrators. But they aren't computer savvy. I am merely talking about introducing friction so that the first person to try will think "oh, didn't work".

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    I'm tentative with my answer, hence a comment. But, no, you can't. If they have admin rights, they have the rights. The only way I can think of doing this would be to right a windows service which created a handle to the files, hopefully preventing the copy as the file(s) are in use... Now, assuming you never use the file and back up at the same time then you'd simply stop the service when you need it, and start the service when you're done (you could even automate this). If you have a domain, you may be able to use RMS
    – Dave
    Mar 6, 2014 at 11:07
  • Thanks for getting back to me. This is just to bluff the person trying it. I don't need to prevent copying as much as I need to prevent the resulting fileset to work on the destination computer. I am considering stuff such as writing a extension module that hashes the network adapter HW address or something. This is a demo machine going to a client, and there is some concern about copying. I would like to not change the core software. So I was wondering if there was some OS level or thirdparty tool that addressed this issue, even though I do not see how it would work.
    – Tormod
    Mar 6, 2014 at 12:06

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