How do I deny access to a folder in localhost

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PHP

HTML5

I have followed the directions of many tutorials showing how to deny access to a folder in localhost. It looks simple but I can't make it work. I have Apache 2.4 and PHP 7 installed on my windows 10 computer. I have created a number of web pages and they all work as expected with localhost. They are in C:/Apache24/htdocs/.

What I have tried:

create a file .htaccess with the following lines of text.

AuthType Basic
AuthName "restricted area"
AuthUserFile "C:/Apache24/htdocs/protected/.htpasswd"
Require valid-user 

I then entered a user name and password into

http://www.htaccesstools.com/htpasswd-generator/

to generate an encripted password. I pasted the generated password into a second file .htpasswd. I put both ht files into the protected folder. I inserted a .txt file and an .html file into the protected folder to test and see if they were password protected. All of the articles say that to open the protected folder will require username and password to access, but when I type http://localhost in the browser address window it takes me right to the files I want to protect/restrict access to.