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I started getting a strange message when I start my computer. An icon appears in the system tray, and a popup tells me "Encrypting file system - Back up your file encryption key".

I know what EFS is, but I don't use it. To my knowledge, I don't have any encrypted files on my partition. I have searched using Total Commander on all the partitions for files that have the "encrypted" attribute, but I found nothing. So I don't have any encrypted files.

Does anyone know what I did to get this message?

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See also this qustion posted for Vista stackoverflow.com/questions/11699/efs-encryption-key-pop-up, but this answer worked for me for Windows 7 to determine the encrypted file. stackoverflow.com/questions/11699/efs-encryption-key-pop-up/… – goodeye Oct 14 '11 at 4:21
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I think I have resolved this. I ran certmgr.msc, and I have seen that there was a certificate under "Personal". That certificate was issued yesterday. The only thing I did yesterday was install Office 2010, and use it to save a document onto my SkyDrive (just out of curiosity).

I think that created the certificate, and Windows prompted me to save it.

Now I deleted that certificate, and I don't get the popup anymore.

What do you think? Is my explanation plausible, or could something else have happened?

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up vote 0 down vote

Is it this icon?

Bitlocker

If it is, then it sounds like Bitlocker to me and not EFS. Is it your personal computer, or a work computer? Bitlocker can be turned on remotely via GPO if it is a computer from your workplace.

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It is my personal computer. I have Windows 7 professional, and it does not include BitLocker – Ove Jun 11 '10 at 5:31
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