Secure your PC

You've got some documents on your PC that you want to keep private. How would you do that?

The first step would be to secure your user profile. As a multi-user OS (Operating System), Windows allows for more than one user to use the same PC, that could be by sharing the same profile or by creating a profile for each user and assigning a password to each user account. To create additional user accounts go to Control Panel/User Accounts. But make sure yours is the only account with Administrator privileges as those private files would be viewable by another Admin user.

If it doesn't already have one, then give your profile a password by clicking Ctrl-Alt-Del together (once logged in) and choosing 'Change Password', leave the current password box blank if you haven't already got a password.

Although having a password protected user account is much more secure it does you no good in protecting those private documents if you go off and leave your PC whilst you are using it and are still logged in. Therefore, to protect them you need to either log off when you leave your PC or lock it. Both options require you to log in when you return but locking your PC is far more convenient as it leaves your applications running, so you can get straight back in to what you were doing.

Locking your PC is simple, either click the Start button and look for the Lock option in the Shut Down menu or more simply press the Windows key plus L at the same time. For those of you who don't know what the Windows key is, it is the key on the left hand side of the keyboard normally between the Ctrl and Alt keys with the Windows logo on it.

But even though this protection will prevent most users from accessing your private files, there are still ways around it for those determined enough and who have access to the PC itself long enough. So the ultimate protection is to encrypt the files, Windows 7 Pro and up have encryption built-in, which allows you to encrypt an entire folder or a single document. This encryption is seamless and doesn't the input of any additional passwords, but has the advantage of preventing external access to that file.

Encrypting a file or folder is simple, load Windows Explorer and find the folder or file that you want to encrypt. Right click on it and choose the Properties option in the menu, click on the Advanced button and if you have a version of Windows that supports it you will see a tick box labelled 'Encrypt contents to secure data'. By ticking that box you will encrypt that file or folder once you click OK.