COPYWRITING A FOLDER

[FnIrish]

How do I make a folder on my External Hard Drive able to be accessed and useable, but also unable to be copied/moved/cut/deleted until I switch it back and how do I switch it back?

 

[PhilFrisbie]

You can't. If you can read, you can copy. If you rely upon Windows permissions it is trivial to get around them. And, of course, there is no way to stop someone from formatting the drive.

 

[FnIrish]

I did notice that when I right click the folder click on Properties and then go into the Security Tab I can edit the Permissions per user. There are check boxes under "Allow" and "Deny" that go as follows: "Full Control", "Modify", "Read & Execute", "List Folder Contents", "Read", "Write" and "Special Permissions". There are also User Names at the top of that list, which one of them is named "Everyone". Would any of what I have listed here possibly be a solution to my question? I am not concerned about my Hard Drive being wiped, if it does happen I do have back-ups of all my files, but I run a Karaoke business and all of my files are on said Hard Drive as well as backed up on other personal ones of mine, I am wanting to loan this Hard Drive out in order to have someone else do Karaoke for a High School Reunion that I cannot attend myself to do and I would like to prevent him from copying my Karaoke folder for Competitive Reasons. He knows little about computers, because I am his Computer Technician. This would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[compulsivebuilder]

No. You can't do it.

To use the contents he needs to be able to read the files. To copy the contents he needs to be able to read the files.

You could hide the files so they can't be copied, but then they can't be used for karaoke, either.

 

[FnIrish]

Good, it wasn't just me then. I am glad that there is a place for us computer technicians to share information when we ourselves are stumped. Thank you both for the help. I really do appreciate it and if I figure out a way to rewrite or write a program that is capable of doing what I need it to then I will gladly make it available to the public. Thanks again.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

I really do appreciate it and if I figure out a way to rewrite or write a program that is capable of doing what I need it to then I will gladly make it available to the public. Thanks again.

Huge corporations have spent millions of dollars to do just this and failed: they call it DRM

When you really analyze it you will realize that allowing files to be read but NOT copied are mutually exclusive.

 

[FnIrish]

Best answer selected by FnIrish.

 

[Brett928S2]

This topic has been closed by Brett928S2