Method and apparatus for preventing inadvertent changes to system-critical files in a computing system

System-critical files are protected from being inadvertently modified or deleted by placing them in a Reserve name space of storage that requires any process seeking modifying access to the Reserve name space to have a "Right" to do so. The right to modifying access is garnered by a process first making a call to a system library procedure that causes a memory-stored data structure associated with the calling process to be modified, identifying the process as one with a Right to make modifying access to the Reserve name space. Any attempt to modify, delete, or create any file residing in the Reserve name space without the Right will be refused.