How to Make a File Read-Only

Series Summary

Computers are complex machines built upon very simple principles. They perform arithmetical operations millions of times over to transform digital information moving at lightning speed into usable human data. A personal computer's job is to help a user create, manipulate, deliver, receive or delete media content. This is a simple, sterile definition that sounds uninteresting on the surface. Nevertheless, these fundamental functions mimic human ability in some surprising ways. Therefore, the computer is increasingly becoming an engine of the imagination, a platform for the digital life. In this free video series, learn how to operate some basic computer programs. David Andrews is a software developer that has extensive experience working with computers. He demonstrates how to organize data using Microsoft Vista. Discover how to limit data fields in Microsoft Access. Also, get tips for linking data from another database to Microsoft Access. Curious how to manage storage? Andrews explains how to read and manage computer storage. So, take a moment, and learn a little bit more about computer programs today!

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Dave Andrews. Today, I'm going to show you how to make a file read only. Let's open up, or go to the computer. Let's just create a file on our desktop, right click on it and say New, and let's select Text Document. Give it a name; say My Document. Let's open up that text document. Let's type some text into it. Save your document and close out of it. Now to make it read only all you have to do is right click on it and go to properties. In this My Document Properties, down at the very bottom under Attributes check the Read Only tab, press Apply. You can now open up that document and make changes to it, but once you try to save to My Document you're going to get an error message saying that you could not overwrite that document. That's because it's read only, which means you cannot write changes to the document. It's that easy to make a document read only in in Microsoft Windows. My name is Dave Andrews, and I've just showed you how to make a document read only."