To prevent users from accessing drives in This PC, you can either use the Group Policy Editor or the Registry Editor. In this post, we will discuss how you can do the same.
Although you can hide a drive, the user can access the drive if he/she comes across the drive, in some other way. This tutorial is handy since users cannot access a specific drive or all drives to save a file or make changes. When you enable this setting other users will not be able to save images, videos, documents, etc. However, all your installed programs will run without any error.
Prevent users from accessing Drives in Windows 11/10
If you want to prevent users from accessing drives in Windows 11/10 Explorer, follow the steps given below.
- Press Win+R to open the Run prompt.
- Type gpedit.msc and hit the Enter button.
- Navigate to File Explorer in User Configuration.
- Double-click on Prevent access to drives from My Computer.
- Select Enabled.
- Select the drive letter from the drop-down list.
- Click Apply and OK to save.
Open the Local Group Policy Editor on your computer. For that, press Win+R, type gpedit.msc and hit the Enter button.
Next, navigate to the following path-
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer
Find the setting called Prevent access to drives from My Computer and double-click on it on your right-hand side. Select the Enabled option and expand the drop-down menu.
Here, it is possible to select the drive letter. You can choose:
- Restrict C drive only
- Restrict all drives
or any other option as per your requirement. At last, click the Apply and OK buttons to save the change.
Following that, whenever you try to open the selected drive, you will be greeted with an error message saying the restriction.
In case you want to allow everyone to access all the drives or lift the barrier, go to the same setting, and select the Not Configured option.
Using Registry Editor
In case you want to do the same with Registry Editor, you need to open the Registry Editor and follow this path-file
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Right-click on Explorer, select New > DWORD (32-bit) value, and name it as NoViewOnDrive.
Next, double-click on it, and set the value as 4 (to prevent C drive), or 3ffffff (to restrict all drives). Then, click OK to save the change.
That’s all!
Read: Enable or Prevent access to Registry Editor in Windows 11/10
How to restrict user to access drive in Windows 11?
Users can restrict access to the drive in Windows 11 using the Local Group Policy Editor, or the Registry Editor. To know how to do the same, check out the aforementioned post.
How do I remove all permissions from my Drive?
To remove all the permissions from my Drive, log in to the Admin console of Google Drive, and click on the Apps option. Now navigate to Google Workspace, and then to Drive and Docs. Once there select Manage Shared Devices, place the mouse on the shared driver, and hit the Member Management option. Now place the mouse over the users who need to be removed, and select the Remove access option. Lastly, click the Done option to execute the effect.
Also Read: Prevent Users from changing the Language in Windows.
