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How to hide drive for specific users in Windows 7?

asked 5 years ago

viewed 135398 times

active 6 months ago

I need to hide the D: drive for specified users on Windows 7. How can I do that?
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17 windows-7 group-policy restrictions
Stack Overflow Podcast #95 -
share improve this question Shakespearian SQL Server
edited Jan 27 '11 at 8:35 asked Jan 26 '11 at 20:35

11 nhinkle ♦ RCola
27.2k 26 113 155 869 11 24 47

migrated from stackoverflow.com Jan 26 '11 at 21:08

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 migrated from stackoverflow.com Jan 26 '11 at 21:08
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33% committed
.. disables access to what? – Blorgbeard Jan 26 '11 at 20:48

...disabled access to drive D and after reboot it suppose to hide drive D for all users. But I need to hide and
disable access only for specified users – RCola Jan 26 '11 at 21:32

Why is disabling access to the drive not good enough? What is the reason for needing to hide it? – Keltari Apr
28 '13 at 5:13 Linked
Why is disabling access to the drive not good enough? What is the reason for needing to hide it? Necro 1
comment, but I am curious. – Keltari Apr 28 '13 at 5:31
How to Block access to a specific drive partition on
windows 7?
add a comment
1
5 Answers active oldest votes
Password protect a hard drive partition

2
Disable Access to Drives for Limited Users in
There is a group policy setting to disable access to certain drives, and another to hide access. You Windows
need Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise to do this. For other versions, scroll down to my
27 alternate solution. 0
Restrict access to hdd or partition in windows 8 to
If you only want to apply the policy to certain users, not every user, you need to configure it individually. admin only
You cannot do this by just opening gpedit.msc ; you need to add the group policy editor from the
3
MMC:
How would I specify specific start menu items for a
1. Run mmc.exe with administrative privileges certain user?

2. Click File > Add or Remove Snapin 2

3. Select "Group Policy Object Editor" and click Add > How do I find the Hex Values that I need to use for
the thread below?
4. A wizard will appear. Click Browse , click the Users tab, and select a user or user group.
Individual users are shown, as well as two generic groups; "Administrators" and "Non- 0
Administrators". How to hide a Jungle Disk drive for a specific users
in Windows 8?
5. Click OK , then click Finish in the wizard.
6. Click OK in the "Add Snapin" dialog. 1
Disable harddrives to limit what space the OS can
7. Enter User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > access as a security measure
Windows Explorer .

Related
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 8. Find Hide these specified drives in My Computer if you want to just hide the drives but Related
still allow direct access (e.g. from run prompt, etc.) to the drives. Find Prevent access to
drives from My Computer to hide the drive and prevent access to it.
1
9. In whichever settings dialog, choose the Enabled radio button and choose the drive(s) you want How to restrict apps for a user account?
to restrict. As of Windows 7, the only options are:
A and B drives only
3
C drive only
How to block applications from running from
D drive only
removable drive
A, B and C drives only

A, B, C and D drives only 2

Restrict all drives Windows 7 user permissions

Do not restrict drives

1
10. Click OK
Hiding and sharing folders with multiple users
The next time the user(s) log in, they will not be able to see/access the drive This should work as you
specifically asked for disabling the D: drive. 0

If you want to disable a drive other than A, B, C, or D, or if you have a version of Windows 7
Recovery Windows XP Active Desktop for
which doesn't support the group policy editor, you will need to make the changes manually in the Restricted Users
registry.

The first step is to load the registry hive of the user you are removing the drives from. The user must 2
be logged out for this to work; in fact, it's better to do a fresh restart before doing this process. Limiting user privileges in an internet cafe setting

1. Open the registry editor with administrative privileges

0
2. Select HKEY_USERS
3. Choose Load Hive from the File menu How to restrict internet access in Internet Explorer
to specific sites?
4. Navigate to that user's profile folder, usually C:\users\username
5. Enter NTUSER.DAT in the File name box. This file is a system-hidden file, so it won't show up
1
in the file selection window. You have to type it in. Be sure not to select ntuser.dat.log by
accident.
Restrict access to certain websites based on user
6. Click ok, then enter a name for the key. We'll call it Foo . in windows or chrome browser

7. Go to
HKEY_USERS\Foo\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer 0

8. Create a new 32-bit DWORD value and name it NoDrives to hide the drives, or
Prevent user from accessing anything besides
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 Prevent user from accessing anything besides
NoViewOnDrive to completely disable access.
certain programs?
9. The value you enter depends on the drive(s) you want to restrict, and is a bit tricky. Each letter,
starting with Z and going down to A, is represented by a 1 (disabled) or 0 (enabled). Make this
0
binary number, then convert it to hexidecimal. This is the number you put in the box. For example,
D is the fourth drive letter from the right, and everything to the left of it is a 0, so the number will be Windows 7 Drive permissions (alternative to group
b1000 , which is x08000000 , so you would enter 08000000 as the value. To disable C and D, policy) block access to internal OS Drives from
you would use b1100 , or x0c000000 . If this confused you, post in the comments for help. external OS
10. Once you've saved this value, navigate back up to HKEY_USERS , select the key you loaded, and
then click File > Unload Hive . This step is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL!! If you don't unload Hot Network Questions
the hive, the user will be unable to login properly. How do I get the last lines of dust into the
dustpan?
11. Close the registry editor, then restart the computer. The new settings should have taken effect.
4k render settings
share improve this answer edited Apr 28 '13 at 4:31 answered Jan 27 '11 at 8:30
Claiming that the model is the first model of its
kind

Community ♦ nhinkle ♦ Robots.txt block URL starting with +

1 27.2k 26 113 155
I rolled a 20 on a stealth check. What now?

The great fall - Clue Fourteen

Ok. Followed this instruction but it hid and disabled access for drive D for ALL USERS, including me. I need to
hide and disable access only for specified users. Is there a way to do it? – RCola Feb 19 '11 at 14:28 Searching for title: short story or book from 80's,
young man on a ship wakes from stasis every
Are you sure you did the registry key or group policy snapin for the right user? If you follow the instructions year on his birthday
exactly as above, it should only do it for the users you specify, not all of them. – nhinkle ♦ Feb 19 '11 at 22:13
Make a "Ceeeeeeee" program
I would be very careful with a change like this. It seems simple on the surface, follow the directions to
accomplish your goal. However, I see the potential for some really painful troubleshooting of potential issues Could a Universal Translator be used to decipher
encryption?
that could arise. If you do this, you need to be extremely careful that there is never a need that these users
will ever need user level access to the hidden/disabled drives. – Keltari Apr 28 '13 at 5:18 What should always be replaced when rebuilding
an engine?
@nhinkle, In your step 3, there is no "Group Policy Object Editor" to select.... See
i.stack.imgur.com/x1ySa.png – Pacerier Nov 16 '14 at 0:13 Where in Amsterdam can one legally spray
graffiti?
@Pacerier are you running a Pro, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise version of Windows? – nhinkle ♦ Nov 16
Why does dough and its ingredients need to be
'14 at 3:15 cold?

show 2 more comments Does notation ever become "easier"?

How to NDSolve this kind of ODE?

Meaning of "Sue me"

How to adjust the alignment of this 10x10 matrix?

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 Is Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
understandable without watching any other Harry
Potter film?
You can hide any drives using Group Policy. This will set restrictions for any users on the machine. What is a term to describe something that is not
necessary to begin with, but becomes so as a
2 Click on Start > Run and type gpedit.msc, and hit enter. result of a non necessary choice?

Then navigate through: User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Why (point-min) is much more popular than 1?
and Windows Explorer. What is the order of events? "I had milk and
Click Hide these specified drives in My Computer. played computer games."

Apache httpd conf file configuration mismatch

Click to select the Hide these specified drives in My Computer check box.
Click on Enabled in the top right and select the appropriate option in the drop-down box. How is my book finding phase angle for EM
waves?
Hope this helps! :) Base64 implementation in C#

share improve this answer Folders renamed through Windows Explorer

answered Jan 26 '11 at 22:22
keep the original name

Dean Perry
457 1 6 16

add a comment

Right-click on said drive in Computer, choose Properties → Security. Update access as needed:
remove "Users", add "Parents", etc.
2
If your version of Windows doesn't have a Security tab, use icacls from command line:

icacls F:\ /grant Parents:(oi)(ci)F

icacls F:\ /remove Users

share improve this answer edited May 15 at 13:27 answered Jan 26 '11 at 22:18

grawity
160k 20 299 385

Tried this method by removing the Users group. It enumerators through all files on the HDD to add the security
policy. In the end my Administrator account still had the "Access denied message" when it finished even
though Administrators group still had Full Access. – ShawnFeatherly May 15 at 9:30

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 I still had access to edit the security policy. It worked great after adding my individual account. –
ShawnFeatherly May 15 at 9:38

add a comment

Taken from this link (a bit too lazy to type it out myself):

1 Right-Click on My Computer [Computer in Windows Vista and Windows 7]

Click on Manage
From the list of options Click on Disk Management that will be located in the left-bottom section
All your hard disk and its partitions will be show in the right hand side
Right-Click on the partition that you want to hide and select "Change Drive Letters and Path"
Click on "Remove" and click "Yes"
Your drive will now be hidden in my computer

share improve this answer answered Jan 26 '11 at 21:25

ChristopheD
2,966 2 9 10

My hard drive devided into 2 logical discs: C and D. If I create new user -> it can access drive D. What do I
need to do in order to deny and hide my disc D for specified user? – RCola Jan 26 '11 at 22:04

Without drive letters or mount points, a drive is still accessible as its volume name. Even though most
programs do not support \\?\Volume{guid} syntax, all it takes is a DefineDosDevice(1, "x:",
"\\??\\Volume{guid}") to assign a session-local drive letter to it. (Btw, these are two different prefixes.
Not a typo.) – grawity Jan 26 '11 at 22:26

add a comment

You're looking for a type of Access Based Enumeration.

Enabling a user to only see drives / folders that they have the permissions for is supported in domains
1 but not in stand alone installations as far as I'm aware.
You used to be able to do this in Windows XP by using Windows SteadyState but this tool has been
discontinued.

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 share improve this answer answered Jan 27 '11 at 9:39

Joe Taylor
8,542 6 34 61

add a comment

protected by nhinkle ♦ Aug 8 '11 at 23:55

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be
removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

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