How to Prevent Access to the C: Drive on Windows 10 Version 1809

[nir]

Easy trick to make sure no changes happen on home partition

Keeping Windows in tip-top shape isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do, especially if there are several users that log into a specific computer every once in a while.

Technically, the more changes they make to a Windows system, the bigger the chances for something to be broken down, and this happens mostly when people who use the computer aren’t necessarily tech-savvy.

However, Windows comes with a series of settings that can prevent specific users from altering the system configuration, and IT pros certainly know this very well, especially because in an enterprise environment, such an approach is almost a must-have.

Most IT admins just create standard accounts for the users they want to have limited powers on a Windows computer, but Windows 10 comes with several other features in this regard. And one of them is a policy that can restrict access to any drive on the system, including the home partition where Windows is installed.

The policy also exists on Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809), and an administrator account is required to enable it.

First and foremost, launch the Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc in the Start menu or after pressing the Windows key + R.

The Group Policy Editor lets you make changes in Windows that aren’t necessarily available in Settings. They are system-wide policies that cannot be altered without an administrator account, and IT admins most often turn to them in order to manage computers within their networks.

In our case, the policy that we need to edit can be found at the following location:

Local Computer Policy > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer

In the right side of the screen, scroll down to find a policy that is called:

Prevent access to drives from My Computer

As the description of the policy states, you can use it to restrict access to specific drives, but at the same time, to also block access to folders and files stored on theme regardless of the method they use.

“If you enable this setting, users can browse the directory structure of the selected drives in My Computer or File Explorer, but they cannot open folders and access the contents. Also, they cannot use the Run dialog box or the Map Network Drive dialog box to view the directories on these drives.”

By default, this policy is set to Not Configured, so click the Enabled toggle and then configure the additional parameters in the Options field.

The policy lets you choose between a series of pre-defined settings like restricting access to all drives, do not restrict access to any drives, or just restrict access to one specific drive. There’s no way to prevent users from browsing two drives.

Once you enable this policy, whenever users try to access the locked drive, they would see an error message reading the following:

“  This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.  ”

This will affect all users who log into the computer and the only way to grant access to the locked drive is to remove the policy altogether.

If you want to unblock the drive at a later time, you can just follow the steps above and then set the policy to Not Configured or Disabled. Additionally, you can also set the same policy to not restrict access to any drive.

Making changes to the policy does not require a system reboot, and the new settings come into effect immediately regardless of the Windows 10 version.

Source

[stylemessiah]

This has been around for many windows versions before 10, just saying, its not new