How to completely block accessing to front shop when is not live yet?

Hi,

we are adding categories and product to our shop, before golive i would like to block accessing guest user to the shop. but for testing the shop, i need to enable all products and categories.

is there any way to redirect guest users to a maintenance page or under construction page till the shop is ready to lunch?

Currently when the shop is closed, guest users have no access to the shop, but they can see the navigation menu (categories) and all other static pages (about us, contact...).

I tried to enable Windows authentication in IIS and disabling Anonymous authentication. but after windows authentication, i am not able to login with shop admin user.

any idea?

Regards,
E.A

dorhost wrote:
You can disable access for guests to these categories and topics (ACL). It should be done manually for each category or topic you want to hide

There used to be a setting (up until 3.60):  storeinformationsettings.storeclosedallowforadmins
Why was it removed?

Now it's available in Admin area > Configuration > Access control list > Public store. Access a closed store (not limited to administrators only)