How To Prevent Access To Drives From Windows Explorer In Windows 7

You may want to protect your privacy while sharing your computer with others, such as your co-workers or family members. We have already shown how you can hide selected drives on your Windows PC (using Local Group Policy or a free utility such as NoDrives Manager). In case you do not want to hide any drives, but only restrict access to them from ‘My Computer’ or Windows Explorer, you can do so by configuring the Local Group Policy.

Here are the steps to deny access to contents of chosen drives on your system:

1. Type ‘gpedit.msc’ in the Start Menu’s search box and hit Enter. This will open Local Group Policy Editor.

2. In the left panel of Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to User Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> Windows Components –>Windows Explorer.

3. In the right pane, scroll down the list to find ‘Prevent access to drives from My Computer’.

4. Double click on this entry to open the setting.

5. Choose the radio button ‘Enabled’. Under the ‘Options’ section, click the drop down menu to choose one or more drives for which you want to disable user access.

6. After choosing the drives, click OK to apply the changes.

That’s it. Users of your PC will be able to see the drive icons in Windows Explorer and browse the directory structure of the restricted drives, but when they try to open folders and access their contents, they will get an error message.

The method described here works with Windows Vista and XP (Professional) as well. Note that Local Group Policy is not available on Home Editions of Windows.