Folder Shield

Folder Shield is a system security tool for Windows. It allows you to hide folders on your system. The folders that you hide become invisible to any user of Windows Explorer, the command line, or even other file explorers.

Apart from being hidden from users, it also prevents other applications from seeing and editing the folder. Also, all the sub-folders and files contained within the hidden folder become invisible as well, and they can't be modified, copied, opened, etc.

All the operations are carried out within the application, and you can password-protect it to prevent other users from accessing your files. The options of the application can also be password-protected for improved security. There is a recovery disc creator, which can create a floppy recovery disc, but you can surely use a USB flash drive for that.

Folder Shield will most likely not work on Windows Vista and Windows 7, because of user account protection settings and the like. However, Windows XP machines should be fully functional. I like the hotkey option within the application's options. It allows you to toggle folder protection in real-time, and it surely beats going back to Folder Shield just to make a folder visible again.