Visibility and access attributes

To protect a file or a folder, you need to assign the desired protection attributes to it, using the commands of Folder Guard. The attributes used by Folder Guard are divided into two groups - the access attributes and the visibility attributes:

Access attributes:

No Access: If assigned to a file, this attribute prevents opening the file, (or running the file, if it is a program). If assigned to a folder, it prevents opening the files this folder or any of its subfolders contain, unless you have allowed access to the specific files or subfolders, by assigning different access attributes to them. This attribute also prevents saving any modifications to the file(s) into the same folder, creating, deleting, or renaming files or subfolders.
Read-only: If assigned to a file or a folder, this attribute allows opening the file, or files in the folder, so that the contents of the file(s) may be viewed by the user, but prevents saving any modifications to the file(s) into the same folder. It also prevents creating, deleting, or renaming files or subfolders. If assigned to a folder, this attribute applies to all files and subfolders under that folder, unless you have assigned different attributes to specific files and/or subfolders of that folder.
Full access: If assigned to a file, this attribute allows full access to it. If assigned to a folder, it allows for full, unrestricted access to the folder itself, as well as to the files and subfolders it may contain, unless specific files or subfolders have been restricted by you with their own access attributes. All operations, such as opening and saving files, renaming or deleting them, modifying their properties, etc., are permitted, as if Folder Guard were not present in the system.

Visibility attributes:

Hidden: If assigned to a file or a folder, this attribute unconditionally hides the file or folder itself (and all files and subfolders the folder may contain).
Empty: If assigned to a folder, this attribute leaves the folder itself to be visible in an Explorer window, but hides all files and subfolders contained therein, unless you have explicitly set a file or a subfolder of this folder to be visible. This attribute cannot be assigned to a file.
Visible: If assigned to a file or a folder, this attribute makes the file, or all files and subfolders contained in the folder, as well as the folder itself, to be visible in an Explorer window, as if Folder Guard were not present in the system.

The "default" attributes:

If you have not applied any restricting attributes to a folder, such a folder is considered to have the default attributes. The visibility of (and access to) such folders is determined by the attributes of their parent folders: if the parent folder is restricted, its files and subfolders become restricted, as well, unless you have assigned different attributes to the files or subfolders, which would override the attributes inherited from the parent folder.

Note that each folder can have different attributes for different users of your computer, so that the folder would be protected differently for each user.