Enable Disk Quotas In Windows XP

Do you have a shared computer, and one of the users is hogging the hard drive space by filling it up with large files (such as video and music). If you're the computer's administrator, then you can make sure that everyone gets their fair share of disk space by setting up 'Disk Quotas'. With Disk Quotas, you can limit the amount of disk space a user can consume.

Disk Quotas are based on file ownership. So if User 1 creates a file that is 1MB in size, their quoted is decreased by that amount. Although, if User 2 takes ownership of the file, User 2's disk space is decreased and User 1 space is increased.

Note: The hard drive has to be formatted with NTFS to use this option.

To enable this feature, follow the steps below:

• From the Start menu, Click on 'My Computer'.
• Right-click the hard drive that you want to enable the Disk Quota feature on, and select Properties.
• Click the Quota tab.
• Check the 'Enable quota management' checkbox.
• Check the 'Deny disk space to users exceeding their quota limit'. By checking this option the user will receive an "insufficient disk space" error if they exceed their space limit.
• Click the 'Limit disk space to' radio button.
• Set the amount of disk space a user is allocated, and then enter value for the 'Set warning level to' option.
• Press the OK button.