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Hiding the C: drive from Users

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Is there a way to hide JUST the C: drive from typical users on Windows NT 4.0 computers. These computers are configured with a 2GB C: partition and a 10GB D: partition with other multiple mapped drives. I wish to hide only the C: drive without hiding any other drives. I have reviewed both Tweak UI and policy settings and neither seems to work the way I want. Any other successful options would be most helpful.

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Hiding the C: drive from Users

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I’m not sure if ther is any way to hide the system partition from locally logged on users, what you can do is set NTFS Permissions on the drive so users have no access to sensitive folders.

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This looks promising, except for the NOTE: at the end.

PSS ID Number: Q158457
Article last modified on 05-30-1997

4.0

WinNT

======================================================================
————————————————————————–
The information in this article applies to:

– Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0
– Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
————————————————————————-

SUMMARY
=======

Windows NT 4.0 administrators can define drive visibility on a per-drive
basis by using the NODRIVES entry in the registry.

MORE INFORMATION
================

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide
problems that may require you to reinstall Windows NT to correct them.
Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of
Registry Editor can be solved. Use this tool at your own risk.

The NODRIVES entry (reg_dword) l

Hiding the C: drive from Users

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Try TweakUI for NT. It allows for hiding of the drives easier than registry.
http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
Dmitri

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I agree with the first answer. You don’t want to hide the winnt folder since that could make nt not useable. We locked down all the sensitive folders and gave the users only the temp folder and a data folder to write to.

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Answer # 2 is the correct one. Here are the specifics of using this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

NoDrives REG_DWORD

Range: 32-bit word
Default: 0

This value entry allows you to hide local and network drives selectively. When you hide a drive, the icon representing the drive does not appear in My Computer, Explorer, or Network Neighborhood, and the drive letter does not appear as a choice in the Open menu of applications. Thelower 26 bits in this value correspond to the 26 letters used to identify drives on the local computer and its network. The right-most bit represents Drive A:; the 26th bit from the right represents Drive Z: To hide a drive, set the bit that corresponds to its drive letter to 1. To display a drive, set the bit that corresponds to its drive letter to 0. To hide all 26 drives, set the value to 67108863 (decimal) or 0x3FFFFFF.

Warning: This value entry does not affect File Manager (Winfile.exe). Drives that you hi

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Cont.

Warning: This value entry does not affect File Manager (Winfile.exe). Drives that you hide by using this value entry still appear in and are accessible from File Manager.

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A thrid-party tool may do what you need. If you are using a management tool for the desktops, look into the docs for that. I believe Tivoli will allow you to do what you want.

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Answers 2 and 5 are quite correct. The “NoDrives” value is what you want. First bit is Zdrive, last bit is Adrive when viewed in binary.
The specific value you asked for would be
00000000000000000000000100(binary) or 4(decimal) which hides only the C drive.
You can modify the admin.adm policy file to include this policy. It already exists in the template as 67108863(decimal) which hides all drives. If you were to simply change that number in the .adm file (with a valid number) your policy would work accordingly.

It’s very workable. Start with 26 0’s, simply replace 1’s into the 26 bit binary value to fit your needs, convert it to decimal and use in the .adm file. (Or manually edit the reg… whichever works better for you)
If you’re using a kixtart login script you can even write that reg value in straight from your script instead of using policies.

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It is possible to hide all drives or just selected ones.

The value of ‘NoDrives’ defines which drives are visible. The low order (right most) bit is drive A: while the 26th bit is Drive Z: To hide a drive, turn on it’s bit.

If your not happy working in Hex, add these decimal numbers to hide the drive(s):

A: 1, B: 2, C: 4, D: 8, E: 16, F: 32, G: 64, H: 128, I: 256, J: 512, K: 1024, L: 2048, M: 4096, N: 8192, O: 16384, P: 32768, Q: 65536, R: 131072, S: 262144, T: 524288, U: 1048576, V: 2097152, W: 4194304, X: 8388608, Y: 16777216, Z: 33554432, ALL: 67108863

Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
Value Name: NoDrives
Data Type: REG_DWORD

It is not recommended to play with registry..

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