Hiding Drives

Today's Windows 2000 Professional tip

HIDE DRIVES IN MY COMPUTER
By default, Windows 2000 displays all local drives and any mapped network drives in My Computer. However, there are some cases in which you may want to prevent Windows 2000 from showing specific drives.

For instance, you may want to hide a mapped drive to prevent users from browsing to it while still making the mapped drive available for scripts and other uses.

The resolution to your dilemma is actually quite simple: Use a group policy edit to control the drives that appear in My Computer and apply that policy either through the local group policy object (GPO) or through a GPO higher in the Active Directory, such as at the domain or
organizational unit (OU) level.

To specify the drives you want to hide, open the Group Policy (GP) console focused on the appropriate GPO. Here's an example:

1. Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and add the GP console.
2. When prompted, select the local GPO.
3. Then, open User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows
Components\Windows Explorer.
4. Double-click the policy Hide These Specified Drives In My Computer, select Enabled, and then select the desired option from the drop-down list.
5. Click OK and close the GP console.

If you have Win98, you can use the TweakUI program to do the same thing.

It can be downloaded from www.download.com.

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