Mirror Sync to write-restricted folder

[mc-lemons]

This question is more of a "can it be done" question, and it pertains more to
how to configure Windows versus FFS, most likely. However, since Zenju
(and others) know way more about the intricacies of Windows than me, I figured
it would be a good place to ask. I have used FFS previously for personal use,
and it is an AWESOME tool, so I would like to implement at my workplace.

Here's the situation: I work at small company, only two offices, with my
office being the satellite office. We do not have much of an IT department,
and as a consequence, not many standard IT practices are in place. So,
everyone has administrative rights to do anything on their personal computer.
Our network drives do have restrictions on them. For instance, our drive with
our standards on it is read-only (except for a select few, like me, as I am
the CADD manager). This drive contains many standards, namely our drafting
standards for AutoCAD and Microstation. These programs routinely need to
access the standards drive, but since it is accessed through a VPN and not the
fasted internet connection, it really slows down our workflow. Also, when our
network or internet is down (or really slow), progress comes to a stand-still.

My plan: I think a good solution would be to mirror-sync the standards drive
to each person's local computer and use RTS to monitor for changes (since we
are in the early stages of developing these standards, they are changing or
being added to frequently). Then I was going to map that local folder to the
letter that was previously assigned to the standards drive. I know it sounds
weird to map a local folder to a drive, but then each program on everyone's
computer would not have to be redirected to the new location, because it would
appear to the programs to have the same path(s). With this setup, the issue of
slow speeds and chance of lost connection would be solved.

The problem I foresee: Even though most users do not have write access to the
standards drive, they would have access to the folder on the local computer
that the drive is syncing to. So they could save anything they want to it. Now
I know that every time a mirror sync occurs, that what they saved would be
overwritten, and it would then match the network drive. But the problem is
that the user would be under the impression that they COULD save there, and no
matter how many times you tell people not to do things, it is bound to happen
if there is nothing to prevent it. While, I am the CADD manager, that does not
mean that I am the only only one develops the standards. While I do a lot of
development, I also can approve what others have done, and then upload. So
others could spend their time making these, mistakenly save them to the local
synced folder (since they all know that this where all standards are put), and
then have all their hard work overwritten at next sync.

My question: Is there a way in WIndows to prevent the user from manually
dragging and dropping a file to the sync folder, or saving a file to that
folder from any program, but still allowing RTS to sync any changes to it? I
know that if I right click a folder and go to "Properties" and then the
security tab (we use Windows 7), I can set permissions to restrict write
access to it, which prevents the accidental writing that I described above,
but then I do not think that RTS will be able to write to it either.

Any ideas/suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you!

[Zenju]

Using NTFS security permissions is the right way to fulfill your requirement.
All you need to do is to first transfer ownership and restrict write access to
some distinct admin user (maybe even password protected, if the solution shall
be bullet proof. Then schedule RTS to run as this special user. If you use
Windows Task Scheduler to start RTS, you can select under which user the tool
shall run.