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hide my files?
I have windows XP, how can i hide my files from other users on the computer..like me and my sister have different accounts..how can i hide my files from her and my parents? thanks
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Maybe give some free advice about: Computers?
Go into your folders and their will be an option to make it hidden. If that isnt there then go under user accounts and go to yours, and uncheck or check the box to make files hidden or visible to other users.
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Protect your account with a secret password.
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If your account is password-protected, files which are saved in your "My Documents" area can't be easily accessed by another user, unless they know how to use My Computer, Windows Explorer, or some other way to access the file system directly. That's not terribly hard, but it's surprising how many people don't know how to do it.
However, an administrator will be able to access your files. Your parents are probably the administrators of your family PC.
You can "hide" files and folders by right-clicking on them, choosing "Properties", and checking the "Hidden" box. But anyone can set their account to let them see hidden files, so again, that's not very secure.
Some individual programs, such as Microsoft Word, give you the ability to password-protect your individual files. That would make it almost impossible for anyone else to read those files; they'd need to install a keystroke capture program to retrieve your password.
Read the Help for a specific program to find out if password protection is available, and how to use it.
If you want to get more serious, there are some utilities available online that will let you hide and password-protect files. Many of them are freeware. These programs offer a fairly high degree of security. Of course, if your administrator blocks your ability to install programs you may not be able to use them...and a keystroke-logging program could be used to secretly record your password and get access to those files. But that would require a fairly high degree of computer literacy, and most parents just aren't that good with computers.
I'm the exception. :D
Here's a link to some useful utilities:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Good luck!
Edited later: Holy cow! formetoknowandyounotto is BRILLIANT - why didn't I think of that? Assuming your family PC has a free USB port, you can use a flash drive for anything really personal. You can pick up a keychain drive with half a gig or more of storage for practically nothing these days. Just make sure to remove any files from the local hard drive. And be sure to empty the Recycle Bin after you've deleted, just in case.
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do you guys all have the same password? if they don't know your pw they can't get into your account. Unless you change your history through internet explorer for websites, i think that's the only thing you can do, other than deleting files.
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