How to set folder permissions in Vista

Posted on April 29, 2009 at 5:44 am

Sharing folders has become a common practice in local and corporate networks.  Over the Internet, we can share our latest downloads of pictures of our favorite celebrities, MP3 collections, ripped movies (legal of course) and virtually any other file we want to share. 

On a shared PC, folders outside a user’s documents and settings folder are accessible by anyone who can login to that PC.  However there are cases that we would want to restrict access to folders. In this post I will show you how to set security permissions on a folder in Windows Vista. 

· Right click the folder you want to set the access permissions for and then select Properties.

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· In the properties window click on the Security tab then click on Edit.

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· On the Permissions window click on the Add button to open the Select Users Group or Groups window.

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· On the Select Users or Groups window you can enter the usernames of the accounts you want apply the restrictions.

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· If you are not sure of the usernames click on the Advanced button to open a search window. In the search window click on the Find Now button to display all the available usernames. Click on the user then click OK.

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· On the Permissions window you can now set the permissions to deny/allow by checking the checkbox under the deny/allow option.

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· On the security window that will pop up click OK.

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· The access permissions for the folder will now be applied.  As you can see deny entries take precedence over allow entries.  Be sure to remember this rule as it causes confusion for a lot of new users.

In the example above, I set all permissions for the guest user to deny.  This means a guest account will not be able to modify or even read the contents of the folder.  If guest log’s in to the PC or connects to the folder using LAN, the guest account will not be allowed to see the contents of the folder.

This is useful if you have multiple accounts setup on your computer, i.e. for kids or other family members, but want to prevent others for accessing a folder. 

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

» Filed Under Windows Vista

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Comments

5 Responses to “How to set folder permissions in Vista”

  1. Faizal said on :

    Can we set folder permission in Windows XP?


  2. ben said on :

    sure you can! just right click the folder then click properties. use the security tab to set the folder permissions per user. the interface is a little different but the process is almost similar.


  3. Scott Felder said on :

    I believe I have a serious permissions issue. Somehow the enire contents of local:(C) are “read only.” When you click on properties, the read only box is checked for everything, all programs, all applications, etc. When I remove the check, close the window, it comes back, even as administator. How can I fix this,..besides complete system recovery.


  4. Despot said on :

    Just one qiestion, I know all the above, but how can I set these permissions over a LAN network for a specified user. The thing is that we are three on the network, I need full acces to a folder and subfolders, but the third computer is allowed to use only some of the subfolders in the main shared folder. Is there a way to set these permisions?

    Thank you!

    Best Regards!


  5. Marius said on :

    I have the same problem suddenly appear that Scott Felder asked about in a previous post. All files are suddenly marked as ‘read only’ and I cannot reset it. How do I resolve the problem? I am using Vista Ultimate.


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