How to restrict user priviledges?

[Bizkitkid2001]

I setup a user account for when I go to lan parties. I did this so that when I leave the computer, people can't access my hard drive, and personal files. But the thing is, I don't know how to get it to where it blocks the user from certain ares of the computer I've look under administration tools, and user account options int he control panel. Does anyone know how to restrict a user to getting into certain parts of the computer? I am running windows XP Pro.


Thanks,
-Biz

[Starfury_2260]

I've been thinking on this same topic too. Got a lan party coming up at my college.

How about turning on fast user switching and hitting start, logoff, and switch user when you leave? This will take you back to the login screen. Then all you need is a password for that account to keep people out. If you're really paranoid I supppose you could set a BIOS password so people cant restart your computer and mess around. I guess they could open your case and reset the BIOS but I doubt anyone would go that far. They'd have to know where the BIOS is and they would surely not risk you coming back since it'd take longer to do anything.

[nukes]

If you use NTFS you should be able to remove the "read" and "write" flags for directories with certain groups using the security tab of the directory properties window. FAT32 has no provision for this sort of thing.

How about turning on fast user switching and hitting start, logoff, and switch user when you leave? This will take you back to the login screen. Then all you need is a password for that account to keep people out.

You don't need fast user switching for that, just hit the "windows key" and L to lock the system. Then you come back and log back in to where you were. Same thing really, but without the overhead.

[Bizkitkid2001]

When I go into the shareing properties of a folder I don't want to share, the box that i'm suppose to check to disable sharing for that drive is grayed out, i can't check it.

[darrelld]

http://www.techimo.com/articles/index.pl?photo=61

[muno]

Why don't you just press ctrl-ald-del and lock your computer when you're not about it?

Or, do you want to be able to tell the other people an username that can access your shares, but not everything?
If so, create an account, setup a shared folder, give the account permissions to it, move everything you need to share to that folder.