Nutans Soft And Games: How to Encrypt files and folders ?

How to Encrypt files and folders?

Folder Lock enables you to encrypt any number of your files and folders. Using Military Standard 256-bit AES on-the-fly encryption to protect your important files, Folder Lock encrypts your important data and gives you a complete peace of mind when it comes to keeping your files safe. Folder Lock encrypts and decrypts your files on-the-fly i.e. the contents of your files are loaded in memory instead of your computer's hard drive. This guarantees that your data is unrecoverable from the hard drive, and is, therefore, faster than normal encryption and decryption as this method does not decrypt everything in your hard drive.
Folder Lock is a best-of-breed data protection solution that, unlike many other similar products in the market, offers a comprehensive data security mechanism for all your sensitive data. Among many award-winning features, the program offers Secure Backup, which is an secure backup solution for all your confidential and private data. The Secure Backup solution in Folder Lock allows you to backup all your encrypted files to your dedicated online digital backup account.
In addition to providing government-level encryption of your data, Folder Lock allows you to create Lockers and keep them on shared folders, network mapped drives, and NAS devices, and you can easily access your encrypted data directly from network locations without the need to copy anything on your local hard drive.
The ability to create, open, edit, move and copy Lockers to & from network locations gives you the freedom to store confidential data on centralized servers, allow access to selected individuals over the network, and complete portability with maximum protection.

Step 1
To start encrypting your files, you will need to create a Locker. To do this, go to the 'Encrypt Files' feature in Folder Lock and click on the 'Create Locker' button on the top menu.
The 'Create Locker' button will create your Locker. A Locker is simply an encrypted storage file that uses government-level 256-bit AES encryption algorithm to store and protect your important files and folders. These Lockers can store any number of files as they are dynamic and resizable; can be added in 'Secure Backup' so they can be backed up automatically; and can be moved to portable drives, shared folders, network mapped drive or NAS devices. Furthermore, since Lockers are undeletable without a correct password (depending on your security settings), you can be rest assured that whatever files you dump into them will remain confidential, theft-proof, and loss-proof.
Once you click on the 'Create Locker' button, the Locker creation wizard will start. The wizard starts with a request to input your 'Locker Name' and your 'Locker Path'. By default, the Locker name (e.g. Locker01) and the Locker path will be provided. The default Locker path is shown in your computer's My Documents folder. You may choose to select a different Locker Name as well as the Locker Path. Once you have confirmed the required details, click 'Next' to continue to Step 2.
Step 2

Here, you will be requested to enter your Locker password details. In the 'Set Locker Password' field, you will need to enter a password for your Locker. Please note that THIS PASSWORD CANNOT BE RECOVERED. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to make sure that you keep a password that is hard-to-guess, but easy-to-remember. Your Locker password will be at least 6 characters short and up to a maximum of 100 characters. You may use ASCII, Alphanumeric or special characters to set your password.
A password-strength meter will show you the strength of your password and you will have the option to enter your password using the Virtual Keyboard available. The Virtual Keyboard allows you to enter your Locker Password without the fear of your password being hacked into by a Keystroke recorder or Keyloggers. Once you have set and confirmed your Locker Password, click 'Next' to continue to Step 3.

Step 3
Here, you can select between two types of Lockers. Backup-able Locker and Basic Locker. Backup-able Lockers are actually FAT32 based encrypted virtual drives that can be added to Secure Backup. Please remember that Backup-able Lockers are of the FAT32 file system, and hence, a single file larger than 4 GB in size CANNOT be placed in the Locker. The maximum size of a Backup-able Locker is 2 TB.
Basic Lockers, on the other hand, do not carry size-based restrictions as they are NTFS. However, Basic Lockers CANNOT be backed up using Folder Lock's Secure Backup service. The maximum size of a Basic Locker is 14 TB.

Furthermore, here you will be asked to select the data size you wish to protect in your Locker. Because the Locker size CANNOT be changed in the future, we recommend that you choose the maximum size for your data. This is very useful to accommodate your future data protection needs, and you can keep adding more files to your Locker as and when you require.
The wizard will give you data-size ranges that you can select from the drop-down list in the ‘Choose Size’ field. Along with preset size options for your Locker, you may also click on the ‘Custom’ link to set your own Locker size. Once you have set the Locker size, the wizard will display the size of the Locker-file that will be required to create your Locker, as well as the available disk-space.
Please remember to choose a Locker size between 300 MB – 2 TB for the Backup-able Locker, and a Locker size between 20 MB – 14 TB for the Basic Locker.
Once you have selected your Locker type and size, click 'Next' to proceed to Step 4.

Step 4 and 5:

Here, the actual Locker creation process starts, and the wizard displays a progress bar that will show until the Locker creation process is completed. Once your Locker is successfully created, the wizard will display the Locker Name, Locker Path, Locker Size, and the Locker Type information for your new Locker, as well as give you the option to open the Locker after you click on the 'Finish' button.
To open the Locker after you click on the 'Finish' button, simply check the checkbox next to Open Locker on Finish. This will mount and open the newly created Locker on a drive (the default drive on which the Locker mounts is Z:\). Once your Locker is opened, you may then explore and add your files to it.
However, if you do not wish to open the newly created Locker at this time, simply remove the check from the checkbox, and click on the 'Finish' button to close the wizard.
If you uncheck the Open Locker on Finish option, the wizard will close and you will be then taken to the Locker list in the main 'Encrypt Files' interface, which will also show your newly created Locker. From the Locker List, you can then Open, Edit, Copy/Move, and Delete your Locker. Optionally, you may also add this Locker to the 'Secure Backup' list.

How to delete a Locker?

If you wish to delete your Locker, simply run Folder Lock and go to the 'Encrypt Files' feature, where you can see all your Lockers in the list. To delete a Locker, select the Locker you wish to delete from the list, and click on the 'Edit Locker > Delete Locker' button from the menu above. Clicking on the 'Delete' button will ask you for a password. Enter either your Locker Password OR the Master Password and click on 'Yes' to confirm deletion of your Locker.
The above given Locker deletion steps are based on default application settings at the time of installation. By default, Lockers are undeletable on the computer where Folder Lock is installed. With this default delete protection setting, you will not be able to delete a Locker from outside of Folder Lock, i.e. from Windows. Additionally, you will also need to enter the Locker Password if you wish to delete a Locker from within Folder Lock.
In case you have forgotten your Locker Password, you can use the Master Password to delete a Locker. A Master Password is a user-selected password or passphrase that a user sets when he/she first installs Folder Lock. As a result, ALL administrative rights to the program will belong to the user with the Master Password. This password becomes the main password for the entire application, and can ONLY be set or changed by the user who first installs the application. However, this default application behavior can be changed to suit your data security needs.
To change default Locker delete protection settings in Folder Lock, simply run Folder Lock and go to the 'Settings' panel. The 'Settings' button is placed above the top menu in Folder Lock. Once you're in the 'Settings' panel, go to the 'Program Security' tab and click on 'Password Security'. This will display the security level options that you can view and select. From here, you can deselect/uncheck the 'Delete protection of listed Locker/Wallet Files'. Once you have deselected/unchecked this option, you can then delete a Locker from outside of Folder Lock, i.e. from Windows. You will also no longer require either a Locker password OR a Master Password if you delete a Locker from within Folder Lock. Simply select the Locker that you wish to delete and click on 'Yes' to confirm.
Important: Please note that deleting a Locker in Folder Lock will also delete ALL DATA inside it.

How to change the password for a Locker?

If you wish to change the Locker password, run Folder Lock and go to the 'Encrypt Files'. Select the Locker from list, and click on the 'Edit Locker' button and then select 'Change Password'. This will allow you to set and confirm a new password for your Locker.
Please remember that you can ONLY edit a Locker when it is 'Closed'. You CANNOT edit an 'Open' Locker. While you are setting a new Locker Password, you can choose a password between 6 characters short and up to 100 characters long. The password strength meter will act as a guide in the form of a colored horizontal bar. This bar changes colors according to how strong the password that you are setting actually is. As with any password, please make sure that your Locker Password MUST be such that it is easy-to-remember, yet hard-to-guess.
For increased data security, you will also see a Virtual Keyboard in the 'Edit Locker' window. The Virtual Keyboard allows you to enter your Locker password without unknowingly exposing your password to any Keystroke recorder or Keylogger that may be installed on the computer.

How do I increase the size of my Locker?

In Step 3 of the Locker creation wizard in 'Encrypt Files', you have the choice of selecting the size of data you wish to protect in your Locker. This data size also becomes the size of your Locker. Since you CANNOT change the Locker size once set during this stage, it is strongly recommended that you set your Locker size in a range that would serve your data protection needs for the future. Do not worry, as this will not take up whole of the space you designate, but only a portion of it and will expand automatically as you dump more files into the Locker.
Since, the Locker is dynamic in nature, and requires a minimum amount of space to be first created, you need not worry about a lack of total hard-disk space on your computer. For example, even if your hard-disk space says you have a total of 40 GBs, you can still create a Locker of a 100 GBs that will hold up to 40 GBs of data in it. As soon as your computer's drive partition has space of equal to or more than a 100 GBS, your Locker will automatically accept more data, up to and including 100 GBS.

What type of Locker should I create?

Depending on your data protection needs, Folder Lock 7 allows you to choose between two Locker types when creating your Lockers in Encrypt Files.
In Step 3 of the Locker creation wizard in 'Encrypt Files', you can select between two types of Lockers. Backup-able Locker and Basic Locker. Backup-able Lockers are actually FAT32 based encrypted virtual drives that can be added to Secure Backup. Please remember that Backup-able Lockers are of the FAT32 file system, and hence, a single file larger than 4 GB in size CANNOT be placed in the Locker. The maximum size of a Backup-able Locker is 2 TB.
Basic Lockers, on the other hand, do not carry size-based restrictions as they are NTFS. However, Basic Lockers CANNOT be backed up using Folder Lock's Secure Backup service. The maximum size of a Basic Locker is 14 TB.

How do I make my Locker undeletable?

To make your Locker undeletable, you will need to set the default application settings to not allow deletion of Lockers and make sure to have the Locker listed in the Encrypt Files list. You can do this by running Folder Lock and going to the 'Settings' panel which is placed above the top menu in Folder Lock.
Once you're in the 'Settings' panel, go to the 'Program Security' tab and click on 'Password Security'. This will display the security level options that you can view and select. One of the security level settings is the 'Delete protection of listed Locker/Wallet Files'. Just select/check the box next to this option and click 'Apply' to confirm the selection. Press on 'OK' to exit the 'Settings' panel. With this option set as the default security measure, you no longer have to worry about the deletion of your Lockers.
Please note that, by default, Lockers are undeletable on the computer where Folder Lock is installed. This is due to the default security setting at the time Folder Lock is installed. With this default delete protection setting, you will not be able to delete a Locker from outside of Folder Lock, i.e. from Windows. Additionally, you will also need to enter the Locker Password if you wish to delete a Locker from within Folder Lock. In case you have forgotten your Locker Password, you can use the Master Password to delete a Locker.