I recall my first negative experience with XP.
I put some pics in My Pictures. Later I got quite the shock when I went to select wallpaper. :eek: Some dumb ass at Microsoft thought it would be nice to include anything in My Pictures as wallpaper.
I keep the My Pictures folder empty. live and learn
It’s not so much the content of the pics. I just don’t like seeing several hundred items in my wallpaper list.
External Hard Drive.
You can get pocket drives cheap. Get one, put all your naughty pics on it, and just hook that bad boy up when you want to put more on there, or watch them. As an added advantage, many DVD players (and the xbox 360, as well as the PS3, I think) can play USB-HDD’s video via a direct connection.
That is the eventual intention. In the meantime, the operating system has its own partition which undergoes rolling Ghost backups, so I have the ultimate “undo” button ready and waiting.
Looks like Softpedia have Microsoft Private Folder 1.0 available, which is more that Microsoft have. I might give it a try.
BigT Thanks, I was thinking the other way around! Wouldn’t even have to USE the extra account, just make a folder private under the account password, if I understand how XP handles things correctly.
I would be careful with the microsoft utilities. There was a problem with windows encrypted file system (EFS) where it uses a certificate/key based on the user account (instead of using a password for the encrypted files), and if you lose access to the windows OS and can’t login as that user, and you didn’t save off the certificate/key, then you’re SOL and even knowing the original user’s password won’t help. Like if you reinstall the OS at some point and the encrypted stuff is on a different drive. I don’t know if the private folder uses the same encryption or not.
With the TrueCrypt file container (or encrypted partition) you can unencrypt on any OS that has TrueCrypt as long as you know the password.
Another vote for TrueCrypt, it might be overpowered for what you want to do but it’s really easy to use and unless you use a password your kids can easily figure out or they install a key logger they’ll never, ever get into that file.
You can, but XP’s a bit weird with opening Explorer under alternate credentials, so it’d be hard to open the folder itself. I think you’d be better off running the actual programs under the second account, and using their Open command to access the files. You’d use “Run as” (on the right click menu) to do this from the main account.
This would have been my suggestion, too.
For the applications your kid is running, an older used computer would work fine. You ought to be able to get one off Craigslist locally for under $250.
Even if your kids put a gun to your head and force you to give up the password, you can set up True Crypt so all they will see is decoy files and the “real” secret files will be hidden.
Absolutely! EFS is for corporates. Don’t use it at home unless you absolutely know what you’re doing.
Can’t you simply set all those files as “Hidden files” (right click, check the attribute box) and set no folder to display hidden files (Tools, Folders Options, uncheck “display hidden files” if it’s unchecked though the system hides hidden files by default, then Apply to all folders) ?
Least, that’s how my dad hid his, err, sensible very-important work-related files. Incidentally, this is also how I learned about Windows’ “hidden files” feature when I was 15 :]
External hard drive for the win.
Encrypting things only makes kids more curious, and they WILL find a way around, somehow.
For goodness sake, 4GB USB thumbdrives are dirt cheap nowadays. You can go up to 64GB, or maybe even higher for more money. That is as secure from kids as you can get. Most even come with halfway decent encryption software or protection software as a second line of defense.
External hard drives can also have a USB interface, which is another option.
Benefit, is even the DRIVE doesn’t show up, unless it’s plugged in and recognized. Unplug it, and Explorer doesn’t even know it ever existed.
Of course, you need to flush your browser cache, or graphics/video player cache often and get rid of the MRU (most recently used) list on the file menu…
At that point, I don’t think I’d worry too much about the kids looking at ‘dirty’ sites on the web, or into anything in my files on the machine – they’ve gone beyond the point where that is my biggest concern!
USB drives, while easy to use, can be found, or worse, accidentally left in your PC. I’m sure you don’t want to do that and have the kids suddenly find an “extra” drive on the pc.
So I’d recommend TrueCrypt. It really is quite easy to use and even if the volume container is left on the desktop, there’s no way anyone could get into it without the password.
If you do it properly, using something like TrueCrypt, then in that case the kids will have developed an extremely marketable career skill.