MaximumPC 2004 06

Is there a way to securely lock an individual folder

in Windows XP? I want to be sure the contents

are password protected, secured against a virus

attack, and safe from being deleted without

the password. Do you know of such a software

solution? I have seen several that offer this, but I

wanted to consult you first. I was told that Win

XP has a way to password protect folders through

compression, but this won’t solve the issue of

deletion, etc. Can you help?

—CORBIN GRIMES

With Windows XP Professional, it’s easy to lock down

entire drives, folders, or even single files using noth-

ing more complex than the built-in security settings.

Beware though, if you mess up your settings, it’s pos-

sible to completely lock yourself out of a directory.

First, open My Computer and go to the Tool menu.

Go down to Folder Options, then click the View tab.

Scroll all the way to the bottom and uncheck “Use

simple file sharing (Recommended).” Press OK and then

browse to the folder you want to lock.

Right-click the folder and select Properties.

Click the Security tab and then the Advanced button.

Uncheck the box for “Inherit from parent the permission

entries....” Doing that will prevent permissions of the

parent folder from being applied to the folder you want

to protect. Now click the Add button and type in the

name of the user account that will have access to your

directory. Click the Full Control box in the Allow column

on the next screen. Then click OK and remove all the

accounts from the Permissions tab except the account

you just added and the Creator Owner and System

accounts. Then go to the Owner tab, and change the

name to the account that should have access.

You can also select Deny in a folder’s Permissions

to prevent specified users from having access to a

folder, but there’s a catch. If a user belongs to more than

one group and one group is allowed Full Control over a

folder, but the other group is denied access, the Deny

rule will take precedence. Furthermore, if you incor-

rectly apply Deny to important system folders, it’s easy

to render your system unbootable.

Once you have the permissions set properly, you

should also encrypt your files. The Windows security

settings protect your files only from people who are

actually logged on to your computer. If they put your

hard drive into another system that reads NTFS, your

files are accessible. You can toggle encryption in the

Advanced button on the Properties page of the files or

folder you want protected.

PUTTING WINDOWS FOLDERS

UNDER LOCK AND KEY

WATCHING LIVE TV VIA WI-FI

I recently created a Wi-Fi network

and I want to know how I can

use it to watch television off a

Media Center PC, in real-time,

on another computer on the

network. Specifically, I want to

watch a TV show (not already

recorded) on a Tablet PC in

another room. Everyone agrees

that Windows XP Pro should be

able to do this, but no one knows

how to accomplish it. Watching

recorded shows, playing MP3 files,

and sharing items from the hard-

drive is no problem, by the way.

—NEIL G. POWELL

That’s exactly the kind of feature

Windows Media Center PCs need, but

as far as the Doctor can tell, there’s

no way to enable it with this build of

the OS.

We’ve had great luck in the past

using Beyond TV 3 (the software for-

merly known as SnapStream ). Using

the app on a normal TV via a tuner

card, you can stream live or recorded

TV programs to a wide variety of

devices, from laptops and set-top

boxes to Pocket PCs. A demo is avail-

able at http://www.snapstream.com.

IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE

HOUSE?

I was on a road trip with my Acer

803 laptop when the carry-case’s

strap broke, sending the computer

plummeting to the floor. It was a

good 4 to 5 foot drop and when

I started the computer the next

day, I found that the screen was

completely blank. I decided to

go “surgeon” on the screen in

hopes of fixing it myself, but this

resulted in a fruitless dismantling

of the device. Enraged and

frustrated, I decided to cut and

dismember the screen altogether.

I now have a perfectly good

“desktop,” but the question is: Is

there a company out there that

sells a screen and battery that can

connect to my “desktop” so it’s

once more a portable laptop?

—ANONYMOUS

It depends on how much emer-

gency surgery you did on it, Hawkeye.

Because notebooks are made by

different companies and to different

specs, you can’t just buy any monitor

like you can with a desktop PC. You’ll

have to buy an LCD panel made for

your notebook. You can do research

on the Internet for the proper parts

and trust that the company sending

it to you knows what it’s doing, or

you can contact one of the numerous

notebook repair shops who have

access to parts and repair manuals.

Option three is to buy a used duplicate

of your notebook that has something

else broken and transplant the screen.

Choppers!

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY...

A year ago I bought a nice PC

and vowed I would use it only for

work. Well, I finally cracked and

began installing games on it and

have run into a problem: I can’t

get a single game to run on my

system even though I use my PC

for intense music and 3D graphics

applications! I have a P4 2.26GHz

Rambus system with 512MB of

Samsung RAM and a Radeon

9600 Pro. You’d think this would

be sufficient to at least boot

Deus Ex 2, but whenever I try to

load a game, I either get a black

screen and the game quits, or I

get an error with several memory

addresses and a message saying

“memory could not be written.”

I’ve tried moving my page file

to another drive, swapping my

memory sticks (I have all slots

filled), running a memory test

program, and all kinds of other

things, without results. DXDiag

shows everything to be OK, and

I can run resource-intensive

programs like Logic Platinum,

Photoshop, or Lightwave (which

makes heavy use of OpenGL), but

my PC runs scared from anything

entertaining!

—DEVIN EARTHMAN

It sounds like your machine is miss-

ing either DirectX 9 or the latest

drivers for your videocard. The fact

that Lightwave works but DirectX

apps don’t is the tip-off. You should

download and install them both.

You can get the latest version of

DirectX at Windowsupdate.com or

By using the folder security settings, you

can keep other users out of the Windows XP

folders you don’t want them to see.

Ask the Doctor Symptom Diagnosis Cure

66 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2004