One feature of group policy is to hide or prevent access to your drives. You may ask why do I still need it since I have Deep Freeze already? Well, I have deep freeze installed but the only drive that I froze is where my operating system is setup, which is drive C:

My drives are partition into two. One is for the operating system and other softwares that doesn’t require updates and the other drive (d:) is for games and applications that usually looks for newer version.

My unfrozen drive is the one being exploited. Saving unwanted files, pictures and porn games (grr!) are just some of the examples that I have on that drive. And to make matter worst, windows xp usually scan the drive for errors that makes the booting process so long. That prompts me to look for a way to hide or disable the access to my drive without using third party applications. Here’s how you do it.

This method can be used only on Windows 2000/XP Professional Edition.

1. Open the Group Policy Editor (Start > Run, type in “gpedit.msc” and press [Enter]).
2. Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates> Windows Components > Windows Explorer.
3. Here, you’ll find “Hide these specified drives in My Computer” and “Prevent access to drives from My Computer”.
4. The difference between the two settings is that “Prevent access” will allow the user to see the drive icon, but will give an error message when he tries to access it.
5. “Hide” will remove the icon so the user won’t see it, but the drive can still be accessed by using Start > Run and keying in the drive letter.
6. Under this setting after you click the radio button next to “Enable”, you’ll see several options. Choose the one you want to apply. For example, “Restrict A and B drives only”. Once your done, just click on apply and presto! drive is gone. No need for extra softwares to do the trick.

Use group policy for whatever purpose you desire. Use it with caution.

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