free way to lock your folders in windoze

[bios]

i dont know if anyone has found this out or not but you can fool windows explorer(file manager) into thinking a legitimate folder has been "moved or removed". all you have to do is open a dos prompt and rename the folder to whatever name you want(doesn't matter can stay the same) except put an underscore in front. only dont use the underscore on your keyboard(shift+-) . use alt+255 (for the retards, the 255 is typed in on the little keypad to your right . instead of making an underscore it makes a space. this is what you want. hit enter and try to open it in windows explorer. nice way to hide special folders from roommates or siblings or parents or any nosey **** you dont want looking at your pr0n


p.s. of course to access folder...just reverse the process.

-bios

[8*B@LL]

2 things:
1) alt+255 is not an underscore(AFAIK)
2) this will not work on any current systems...just 95/(maybe)98. nothing newer.

[xpaciscool]

8ball you are wrong. I just tried it on my system XP pro and it worked. He didn't explain it very clearly you type +_ not +- . Then you type the alt 255 which makes a space and renders the file hidden or somethin.....

[8*B@LL]

erm....i must be missing something here cause i have done this and had it work on old 95 boxes, but never any 98/2k/ME....and i just retried with my 2k box...nothin. can traverse and add/delete and everything....perhaps you could provide a better explination?
the way i always used to do it was this:
open a dos prompt. use the "md" command to make a directory and in the name use the alt+255 charecter somewhere in the dir name. this directory would then show an error whenever you tried to open it or delete it or anything, and you would have to open a dos prompt to change the name back so you could then access it again

[ammo]

Suprisingly enough it does seem to work even on NT based win kernels.. (ie: nt, w2k, xp)

However the 255 IS NOT an underscore but rather a blank character like 8 ball said...

Ammo

[xpaciscool]

hmm i just tried it again like 20 times and it didn't work.... Very Odd ......

[5150]

alright people, it goes like this. in the dos promt, say you want to change the C:\windows\**** directory to be hidden, you type "rename C:\windows\**** *****" the asterick being holding down alt while typing 255 in the numberpad. notice right before the star there is a space.

[iNViCTuS]

kind of a cool trick...

But, why not just use file permissions if you have NT, 2000, or XP?

[sparkant]

It doesn't work on my Win2K box.
I've tried every possible way, so I'm a bit confused about this.

Grtz,

sparkant.

[VanEck]

i remember this trick back in win 9x days as well, and forgot about it until now. i too just attempted to do it again on my win2k box at work and discovered that i can still enter the folder, add to it, etc. adding the 255 character did not make any difference. not through dos and not through the windows gui. it is still visible and can be altered. it seems to automaticly remove the 255 character. the only reasonable guess i can think of is if you have a different file system. i am currently using ntfs. perhaps this trick only works on fat or fat32. if anyone is using a version of the fats, post and let us know the results. same with those using ntfs. i would like to get to the bottom of this.