Advice needed on Xp psw

cubix

Sharing a box between a couple of people running Xp Home and was wondering how secure is it from other prying eyes?.I dont have world secerts stored but it would be conforting to know someone else can not have a gander at your stuff. We are all setup up as computer admin with privacy turned on but how easy is it for someone to crack the user passwords on xp
Cheers

silverside

AFAIK (and i am not an expert) they can see your user data *without* knowing your password, by looking in the user profiles folder. The only way to secure your data reasonably well it to use the Encrypted File System on all your personal folders. I don't think this encryption is included in XP home.

As I say I've not done any MS training so I could be wrong.

ColmOT [MSFT]

Silverside is correct - EFS is for people like you!

BUT you need Windows XP Professional to get EFS...

Dun

You could always get the freeware version of PGPDisk (or pay for a newer version) included with PGP. It will let you create an encrypted file, that you can then "mount" using a passphrase, and unmount it when you want it unmounted. You can even use a shortcut combo (e.g. CTRL+ALT+F12) that will unmount it no matter what program you're in, so nobody has to see what you're doing.

Anyhow, if you do go down that route, get the 6.58CKT (Imad's) version because the last freeware versions will prevent Windows 2000/XP from entering standby or hibernation. Of course, if you don't use those then it doesn't matter.

jabberwock

if you have a password on your wondpws login other users on that pc cannot see into your profile. you can also make your "My Documents" public or private in its properties. thats in Home Ed.

please correct me if i'm wrong.

Cake Fiend

Well, as XP home AFAIK treats all its users as having Home's equivalent of Administrator privileges by default, any of the users could presumably 'take ownership' of a supposedly private folder or file, thus gaining access to it. Good old windows security.

A third-party encryption program is your only man here.

cubix

Thanks for the replys