If you’re sharing a computer with other users and don’t want them to read certain files, you’re going to need a decent protection mechanism. Fortunately, Windows provides a built-in encryption mechanism that protects your files at the file system level.

Windows Encrypting File System provides a file encryption technology used to store encrypted files on NTFS file system. Once you encrypt a file or folder, you work with the encrypted file or folder just as you normally do. This means that you do not have to manually decrypt the encrypted file before you can use it.

You can encrypt a file or folder in Windows using the following steps: right-click on the file or folder you want to encrypt and bring up the Properties dialog. Make sure General tab is selected, and click the Advanced button to bring the Advance Attributes dialog. Check the Encrypt contents to secure data and click OK.

When you access an encrypted file or folder, Windows will automatically decrypt the contents for you. If you want to share an encrypted file or folder between several users, click the Details button in the Advanced Attributes dialog and select which users have permissions to access the encrypted file or folder.