Folder with Password

Hello,
On my network with W11 Home I have a shared folder, how can I password protect it?
Thanks

Windows doesn't support password protected directories. You can change the ACL to only those that need access.

7-zip will do it.

make a .bat file with:


replace "Locker" in the script with whatever you want to name the folder.
replace "Your-Password-Here" with whatever you want the password to be.
will hide the password protected folder once created. can remove the attribute -h if you want.
can easily be bypassed though....

I think the suggestion to simply change the ACL was the simplest way.

You can encrypt files and folders in Windows using EncryptOnClick program.

FreeBooter said:

You can encrypt files and folders in Windows using EncryptOnClick program.

EncryptOnClick

EncryptOnClick Freeware EncryptOnClick Freeware is a program that lets you securely encrypt and decrypt files. EncryptOnClick Freeware is like hiring your own highly expe

www.2brightsparks.com

Click to expand...

I don't think it works online, are you sure?

neemobeer said:

Windows doesn't support password protected directories. You can change the ACL to only those that need access.

Click to expand...

like this?

Donnje said:

I don't think it works online, are you sure?

Click to expand...

What do you mean online?

FreeBooter said:

What do you mean online?

Click to expand...

sorry I made a mistake I meant in local network

Donnje said:

sorry I made a mistake I meant in local network

Click to expand...

Try the software to find out its free.

Donnje said:

I don't think it works online, are you sure?

Click to expand...

Donnje said:

sorry I made a mistake I meant in local network

Click to expand...

No that is not functioning:

Just did a test:
If I make a text file on my normal document partition (D:) on an internal drive (just one word in it) and encrypt that (with password 'test' via EncryptOnClick - EOC) the file will be encrypted. The extension of that file will change into .EOC. The original file will be deleted.
If I doubleclick that file, I will get a window to fill in the password, after filling in the right password, the extension changes into .txt again. And the text is readable again.

So far so good, used that very often in the past.
Note: The file with extension .EOC as a matter of fact is an encrypted .zip file, that, after changing the extension to .zip, could be unzipped using another unzip program like WinZip, ExtractNow etc. but not via Windows, because Windows does not recognize the 256 bit AES encription.

After that I tested if that does function as well on a shared device in the network. It does NOT. You can encrypt the file, get the same window to fill in the password, it changes the file extension into .EOC. But... if you try to decript it by clicking, filling in the correct password, it will always show a window that says: "The password is incorrect". And you will never ever get that file back! Not even when you copy the protected file to your normal disk and try to decrypt it there.

The test was done with an older version of EOC 1.4.1.2.
Because of that I installed the newest version of EOC: 2.4.13.0
And did the same test: same result, when encrypting on a network drive, you will lose the file you wanted to encript, I saw no way to get it back.

Did a test on a drive attached to USB: that is no problem, decrypting is successfully.

In the past I have used EOC a lot to encrypt confidential emails and pdf's that for example represent my banking account stuff. To watch the encrypted files, I had to decrypt them and afterwards encrypt them again. That was somewhat inconvienient, but suddenly I realized that I am the only person in the family that knows how to use it and view the files encrypted like that.

But my wife and my son (about mid 40) do not know how to handle those files. So if I'm not there anymore or get memoryproblems (I'm in the age to get such a thing) then they would have big troubles to view confidential mails and banking overviews that may be important for them.

Now I am printing every confidential file or mail into pdf and encrypt that pdf via one of the many pdf-encripting apps. When you click on it, you get the question for the password and after filling it in, it opens the pdf. So much easier, but no way to protect the real mails. So I delete them after making sure I printed the mail.

Don't have any desire to use a different method, the encrypting of pdfs is enough for what I want to do. My wife only has to remember the password which she does...

Edit:
Did another test: encrypted the file on the normal documents disk D:, copied that file to the network drive and tried to decrypt it there. That does function, the decrypt was successfully, so the problem is caused at the encrypting on a network drive.

For my NAS, I just set the ACL for the various folders for the user accounts on the network. My folders on the NAS have me in the ACL, folders for other folks here have their own account on the NAS. They can access their folders, I can access mine. Obviously as the network admin, I do have access to all the files on the NAS, but it's possible to remove admin access from a specific folder if someone is really paranoid about their files. My grandson is the only guy that's really paranoid, but he set up his own NAS, problem solved.

Depending on how it's read, your title can be construed differently. While you may be referring to folder encryption as the others read the post, you could also be referring to password protected sharing. You can turn on password protected sharing on that computer. Then others would need to enter that computer's credentials to access any files on it.

Assuming this folder is where you keep your important files, you can also do what I do. I have a second cloud provider account that uses an entirely different username and password. I store all my confidential files there rather than on my computer or in the onedrive account associated with my computer..It's password is very very difficult and it has 2-step verification on it as well.

dacrone said:

make a .bat file with:

Code:

cls
@ECHO OFF
title Folder Locker
if EXIST "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" goto UNLOCK
if NOT EXIST Locker goto MDLOCKER
:CONFIRM
echo Are you sure u want to Lock the folder(Y/N)
set/p "cho=>"
if %cho%==Y goto LOCK
if %cho%==y goto LOCK
if %cho%==n goto END
if %cho%==N goto END
echo Invalid choice.
goto CONFIRM
:LOCK
ren Locker "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
attrib +h +s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
echo Folder locked
goto End
:UNLOCK
echo Enter password to Unlock folder
set/p "pass=>"
if NOT %pass%==Your-Password-Here goto FAIL
attrib -h -s "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}"
ren "Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}" Locker
echo Folder Unlocked successfully
goto End
:FAIL
echo Invalid password
goto end
:MDLOCKER
md Locker
echo Locker created successfully
goto End
:End

replace "Locker" in the script with whatever you want to name the folder.
replace "Your-Password-Here" with whatever you want the password to be.
will hide the password protected folder once created. can remove the attribute -h if you want.
can easily be bypassed though....

Click to expand...

Can you provide instructions? I could not get this to work.

It creates a folder called Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} which I can open without a password and I can view its contents

sorry, i hadn't used that in a long time. half-works when i just now tested it on 24h2. instead what it does (for whatever its work.. if anyone finds use for it):

create the .bat as-is with this code
double click the .bat and it will create the folder named "Locker" (can be changed in the code by replacing all instances of "Locker" with different name)
double click the .bat again and a command prompt will open asking if you want to hide it (Y/N)
once hidden, double click it again and you will see a command prompt asking for the password (set in the code by replacing "Your-Password-Here")
once password is entered and you press Enter, the folder will be unhidden / "unlocked"

*but as i stated it is easily bypassed. the password is all for looks. in win 11 the only thing it really does is set the attribute for Protected System File so that it wont show if you only show hidden files... you have to unhide protected system files too

there is no encryption used

if you want encryption to lock it, try MacPaw Encrypto
.https://macpaw.com/encrypto

But it did not hide the folder.

i just did it and it did. thats what the attribute "h" is for. +h and -h are both in the script

The problem with the hidden attribute is anyone can set "display hidden files" and see them. :)