You can limit the amount of disk space that each user can utilise using the feature called Disk Quota in both Windows 7 and Vista if you share the same computer with other people and need to properly control disk usage.
Enabling disk quota:
In My Computer, right-click on the hard-drive partition on which you want to enable this feature and then click on Properties.
Go to the Quota tab and tick the Enable Quota Management checkbox.
Next, you can check the Deny disk space to users exceeding Quota limit checkbox.
Select the Limit disk space to radio button, and then configure it to the amot that you want each user to have and also the disk space usage at which the user needs to be warned.
Click on Apply and then OK to save the settings.
Get filenames from directory:
If you want to see a list of all the files and folders contained within a particular directory, say your music folder, you can do it with a simple batch file.
Open Notepad and type the following code.
@echo Saving the directory listing to c:\listoffiles.txt
@dir%1 /A /S > c:\listoffiles.text
@REM the /A switch lists all hidden and system files also.
@REM the /S switch lists all subdirectories and their contents also.
@notepad c:\listof-files.txt
@pause
Save it as List.bat
Navigate to the folder where you saved it, right-click on the file and click on create shortcut.
Now open Windows Explorer and type shell:sendto in the Location bar.
Drag the shortcut into this folder. Now when you want the list of files in any folder, right-click on the folder, point your mouse cursor to ‘Send to’ and click on List.
The list of files will get saved as C:\listoffiles.txt and it will open in Notepad. You can save it under a different name or print it if you want it permanently.
Change drive letters:
Mounting partitions as folders in other partitions helps keep your data very simple and easily organised. You can even do it with an external hard drive. For instance, you can store all your music in it and mount it as C:\Music\.
To mount hard disk partitions as folders, open Control Panel from the Start Menu.
Double-click on Administrative Tools and select Computer Management.
In the left pane, Navigate to Storage > Disk Management.
Right-click on the partition you wish to mount as a directory in the lower right pane and select Change drive letter and paths……
Select the current drive letter and click on Remove.
Then click on Add. Choose the Mount in the following empty NTFS folder:button.
Browse to the desired volume, C:\ in our case and add a directory for your drive by clicking on the New Folder button. Click on OK after you are done in all the subsequent windows.
If you wish to return things back to the way they were, simply delete the current drive path (the directory location that you choose) by repeating the same procedure, and then choose a drive letter instead. This can also be used to change the drive letter.
Block pen drives:
Pen drives can be used to upload malicious code to your computer – either deliberately in the case of remote spying software of by accident in case of viruses. They can also be used to copy and steal confidential information from your computer when left unwatched.
Whenever a new USB device is plugged in to a USB port of your computer, Windows checks its device and hardware ID to determine if it’s a storage device or not. If it determines that it is indeed a mass storage device or a pen drive in common language, it will load the appropriate driver, and display the device as a drive in Windows Explorer. All of this is handled by the usbstor.sysdriver.
So, to block your computer’s ability to use USB drives follow these steps: Go to Start > Run and type regedit to open the registry editor.
In the left pane, navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Current-ControlSet\Services\USBSTOR.
Double-click on the entry named Start in the right pane.
Change the Value data: field to 4. Press OK to save it.
If you want to revert back to the defaul configuration and enable your computer’s ability to use USB drives, just set the value of Start to 3 again
Credit: Digit Magazine
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