WinHide

WinHide is an approachable piece of software that enables you to hide and optionally encrypt folders on your computer, in order to protect all containing files, even inside subfolders.

It includes several handy options that can be configured by all types of users interested in protecting personal data from other people they share their computers with.

Setting it up takes minimal time and effort, thanks to the fact that there are no complicated wizard steps. At the first run, it's necessary to password-protect the application with a key which shall be required every time you want to start it. This cannot be later changed into a new password, so you should make sure to remember it.

The main app window has a clear-cut appearance and neatly organized structure, where you can add as many folders as you want to lock to the list. Once hidden, they become invisible to other PC users and can only be accessed from this program. Filenames can be optionally encrypted, while the status of the folders can be changed to visible anytime.

Another notable aspect is that the access password is not requested when attempting to uninstall WinHide, which means that anyone can remove it from the computer and gain access to the locked directories.

The software application hasn't received updates for a pretty long time and this is probably why we failed to get it up and running in optimal conditions on newer Windows versions in our tests. It worked smoothly on older editions, though. CPU and RAM usage was minimal, so it didn't hamper the computer's performance.

To wrap it up, WinHide doesn't bring anything new to the table when it comes to folder protection and doesn't work properly on later Windows. However, you can count on it if you're running an older edition on a weaker hardware configuration.