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Configuring User Permission on Files and Folders

This post was made by me (22094775) for additional assignment on Operating System class :)

Windows XP, Vista, and 7 makes it possible to a system administrator to configure user permission on specific files and folders. This is important for security and privacy reasons, so here is how to check the current user permission settings in a file/folder:

  1. Open the file/folder properties
  2. Go to the security tab 
  3. There, you can see the list of users and their permissions
You will find several users, some you might know. Some of them are groups of users (will  be marked with [G] on following list). Here are some common names that you'll find there:
  • Administrators[G]
    • This group contains all human users with administrator privileges
  • Users[G]
    • This group contains all human users, with or without administrator privileges
  • OWNER/CREATOR
    • This user is the one that created the file/folder
  • SYSTEM
    • Not a human user, the name is self-explanatory, it's recommended that you don't mess up with this user's permission settings
  • Everyone
    • Everyone: Administrators, non-administrators, system, etc. This user's setting is the one you'd like to modify to easily configure access for all users.
You will also find several other users which you or your system administrator created, you might want to make a new temporary user account in case you want to play (or learn) user permission control configuration. Some users have strange names, such as S-1-5-123 or so, they are (usually) printers or file sharing servers, do not modify unless you know what to do with them.

There are several kind of permissions, before we go to configuration part, here are some short explanations of what they are:
  • Full Control
    • As the name suggests, this permission gives user or group full control to a file/folder including read, write, modify, and execute
  • Modify
    • This permission allows user/group to change the content of a file/folder, by giving this permission to a user, you'll also give read and write permission
  • Read & Execute
    • With this, a user/group is allowed to read the file/folder contents and run any executables inside
  • List Folder Contents
    • Not really important and self-explanatory, the effect of this permission can only be seen when you're playing with dir command on command prompt
  • Read
    • Same with read and execute, but without privilege to run executables
  • Write
    • This permission allows user/group to change the content of a file/folder including creating new file inside a folder
To make it easier for you to configure the permissions, here provided several scenarios and presets that you can use:
  • Blocking file/folder access to anyone other than you
    1. Under group and user names, click Add button
    2. Click Advanced button, then click Find Now
    3. Find your user name, click OK
    4. Now you should find your user name on the list, select it
    5. On permission, tick Full Control on Allow
    6. Now select Everyone on user name list
    7. On permission, tick Full Control on Deny 
  • Modifying file/folder access to specific user account
    1. If you can find the user name on list, skip to step 5
    2. Under group and user names, click Add button
    3. Click Advanced button, then click Find Now
    4. Find the user name whose permission you wanted to modify, click OK
    5. Find the user on list, select
    6. Now it depends on how you'd like the permission modified
        • To make the file/folder Read Only for the user, tick Read or Read & Execute on Allow and Write on Deny
        • To allow user to read and write but not to delete the file/folder, tick Read and Write on Allow, leave the others blank
        • To block permission completely, tick Full Control on Deny
Special thanks to Mr. Antonius RC S.Kom, M.Cs

1 comment:

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