Restricting folder access to a process

My ultimate goal is to have some monitoring software on my computer that I am not aware of how to turn off. I know that's ultimately an impossible goal, but I'm trying to make it work anyway. I thought I had it all worked out, using a third party app called Folder Guard, but then discovered that it only works under Admin users, hence my problem:

I have a program (the monitoring software) that runs under my account (and I am limited). It needs access to a given folder, and both creates and deletes files within that folder. At the same time, I need to be prevented from deleting from that folder. The obvious answer is permissions. The problem: the program runs under my name; if it can delete a file in the folder, so can I. If I deny myself access to the folder, the process can't get there either.

So basically I need to restrict folder access to the process, and nothing else, especially explorer.exe. A third party app, Folder Guard, does this quite well, but only if you're an admin user, which I can't be. (way too many other options open up for evading the monitoring software...) Third party apps, even not free, are OK, but I wonder if there's already something in Windows (XP Home, SP3) and/or permissions that can make this work. Thanks!


ETA: Folder Guard's tech support just told me their program should be able to work under limited users. I must have something set up wrong. There is, however, something that tells me Windows should be able to do something similar through permissions, etc without third party programs. Other people have asked similar things across the internet before, so it would be nice if an answer was given for the next person who runs into this post...
Or, if a moderator wants to just delete this topic, that's OK with me too. I didn't see a button to do it on my end.

Edited by ojchase, 11 January 2010 - 09:30 PM.

Why don't you set the program to run as a system process. Then all you have to do is set the NTFS permissions to allow full control to the system and the administrator and delete everyone else. You will have to go to the advanced tab on the permissions page and uncheck the "Inherit..."- select copy- apply teh n you can go back to the main permissions page and remove everything but those two items