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This may well be an easy question to answer. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium and my hard disk's file system is set to NTFS which in theory should support EFS. However I've read that EFS is only supported on Windows 7 Professional and up. In fact, when I right-click on a file or folder and go to General -> Advanced... the option to encrypt appears but is disabled (grayed out).

So, if I want to use NTFS encryption, can I boot Linux, mount the NTFS partition, and encrypt/decrypt files using the EFS scheme from within Linux? Are there any tools that allow me to do this? Of course, if I do this and I am running Windows 7 Home Premium or below then I guess I won't be able to read those files or folders which are encrypted, but I just wanted to know whether this is possible.

Alternatively, are there any addon tools which work on Windows which somehow provide compatible functionality without upgrading via the Windows Anytime Upgrade (WindowsAnytimeUpgradeUI.exe) facility? Given that the file system supports the feature, it should just be a matter of running some compatible software with administrator privileges to obtain the desired effect (of being able to encrypt or decrypt files in an EFS-compliant manner). The following Wikipedia article mentions something about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypting_File_System#Other_operating_systems_.28e.g._Linux.29

What the Wikipedia article does not mention is if, by providing the appropriate credentials or other means, such files actually become readable on Linux when encypted.

Alternatively, given that Windows 8.1 (just like the recent OS X Mavericks), seems to be free, can I just upgrade to Windows 8.1 and have this feature. My machine is 2 years old and I would like to know whether the OS will be sluggish/run slower on such machine. I would also like to know whether I can upgrade directly without having to reinstall, thus preserving all my files without them having to reside on special partitions.

Thanks.

2 Answers 2

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http://klonkers.blogspot.si/2013/09/encrypted-file-system-on-windows-7-home.html

Here a way is described how to enable EFS on Windows 7 Home Premium. You need access to a PC that supports EFS. The steps (copied from linked page):

1. On the machine which does support EFS, go ahead and set up an encryption certificate.
2. Export the encryption certificate, copy it over to the Windows 7 machine and install it.
3. Create a folder and mark it as encrypted on the first machine.
4. Copy the folder onto a USB drive formatted with NTFS.
5. Finally, copy the folder from the USB drive onto the Windows 7 machine.

Did not test it...

-1

If Windows 7 Home has CIPHER.EXE this may allow you to do it via command line. I did not test this.

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  • 1
    Before you make a suggestion and post that suggestion as an answer you really should verify your suggestion works.
    – Ramhound
    Mar 27, 2016 at 21:28
  • 1
    Windows 7 Home doesn't have CIPHER.EXE so this answer is useless.
    – DavidPostill
    Mar 27, 2016 at 21:59

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