Questions tagged [efs]

EFS (or Encrypting File System) is a feature included with some high-end versions of Windows XP and newer which allows the user to encrypt data on a filesystem level.

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Windows 10 not using imported cert to decrypt EFS files

I encrypted some files with Windows's built-in EFS encryption, which involved creating a new EFS certificate and saving a backup of it somewhere. I recently swapped motherboards/re-imaged my PC and ...
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how to decrypt an encrypted file from a old account

So awhile back I was just testing out the encryption thing to just see what all it did and how it works etc. Little did I know I forgot to decrypt them before I formatted disk. I do still have all the ...
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Temporarily read an EFS-encrypted folder on someone else's computer

Example situation: You have an external USB hard drive with a folder D:\Work\ encrypted with EFS, and you want to copy a few files from it to your colleague Bob's computer You plug the external USB ...
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Setting up EBS/EFS disk storage for disaster recovery

I am thinking about how to best setup a couple of environments on AWS. I would like to setup two servers: Application server (running web application and REST services) Tools server (running several ...
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How to use a hard drive containing EFS-encrypted files on another computer?

I'm starting to use EFS feature to encrypt several folders of my hard drive, using Right click > Properties > Advanced > Encrypt contents to secure data (see screenshot). At the end of the process, a ...
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Enable EFS for whole system partition

When I try to apply EFS for the Windows system partition, there's many files error with "access denied". How to override the restriction?
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Is it possible to re-create certificate that was created with EFS?

I have some files that are encrypted with EFS. I do not have the certificate to decrypt. But I do know the username, computer name, password, etc. that were used when the files were created. Is there ...
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Windows server 2012 DRA (Data recovery agent) account not able to decrypt files

I have a Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper V VM acting as a domain controller (for domain parihar.local). I am setting up EFS (Encrypted File System) on the same and am running into a very specific issue ...
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broken encrypted files after reformat

I had some files encrypted with cipher cmd command on an external hard drive with FAT32 format. one day I had to copy a large file on that hard drive and I reformated the hard drive to NTFS format. ...
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what happen if I use 7zip to compress EFS-encrypted files to create a new zip

is the EFS-encrypted files decrypted automatically and save to the new zip file? So I can give the zip file to another user/external parties, to open it without any EFS keys?
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Windows 7 EFS, where are the FEK stored?

I feel confuse, I read from many technical doc from Microsoft and wiki. The FEK is generated for each file, and store in the file headers. But refer to this blog windows-7-how-to-use-cipher-exe-a-...
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How does EFS use the user account to decrypt files?

My company uses pGina on its Windows machines so that we can log in using our LDAP accounts without Active Directory. Last week I accidentally entered my account password unmasked while SSH'd into one ...
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Windows 7 Unzip downloaded archives are Encrypted - EFS

Basically when I download a zip archive, typically in chrome, but this happens in Mozilla as well, the files in the archive are encrypted (EFS) when I unzip them. Not password protected or anything ...
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container mounting fails after moving Docker files (images) to AWS EFS NFS mounted volume

Recently switched my AWS EC2 ubuntu 14.04 instance from using a ebs volume to the newish EFS. That all works great and I moved for example all my owncloud data there. Now I wanted to move my docker ...
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Recover Encrypted Data from windows.old (WIN10)

I recently had to reinstall windows 10 because it became unusable. I've got all my data back from windows.old and other sources but... Without me realizing it, windows had encrypted some of the data ...
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How to copy encrypted files to shared folder retaining encryption?

I'm copying a folder from local HDD to a remote shared folder. Both systems are Windows 7 SP1, members of the same domain, I am logged in as a domain user and the files are owned by that user. There ...
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How do I recover Windows EFS keys

Long before my hard drive crashed I backed it up using Acronis TrueImage 2010, a full partition backup of Windows 7 Professional 64bits. Oddly enough, the C OS partition is the placed as the second ...
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EFS and encrypting new files automatically

I have an issue where files are not always being encrypted. I did a right-click and set the folder to encrypt all sub-folders and files when they are dropped in. As of right now, new files are not ...
Jason's user avatar
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Is the EFS key of all accounts associated with the same Microsoft account the same?

My boot hard drive stopped working but I had backed up all the files on an external hard drive and encrypted it with EFS prior to this. I unfortunately did not make a backup of the key and so was ...
Don't Root here plz...'s user avatar
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How to disable Encrypting File System

I accidentally (believe it or not) enabled Encrypting File System on Windows 7 that uses my personal certificate. I don't need the encryption, and I don't want to be stuck with inaccessible files in ...
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Can't export Windows 10 EFS certificate

Just got a new laptop and encrypted a couple of folders, the handy "export certificate" reminder popped up, so I exported it. Job done. This reminded me to check I had backed up my other computers' ...
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Is this a ransomware?

I just got this window on my main computer: Apparently, it's from Windows. I checked, and the process EXE file is the original one (efsui.exe or something like that). However, I don't use EFS (I ...
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Can the SAM database be encrypted with EFS to prevent offline password cracking?

Is it possible to EFS-encrypt the SAM database to prevent offline password cracking? Would it have to be encrypted as the SYSTEM user?
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Which windows services are ok to: SC Type= own?

Looking at the best answer to "How to find memory usage of individual Windows services" posted on Server Fault it looks like SC Config ServiceName Type= own is the best way to 'split-off' services ...
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Backed-up EFS certificate doesn't work after resetting password

I'm on a Windows Vista computer. I've wanted to use EFS for a little while but I wanted to experiment on some individual files first. While doing that, I backed up my certificate and key, reset my ...
John's user avatar
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Delete EFS encrypted file without certificate

I used to use a Yubikey with a certificate for file encryption. I then modified the encryption certificate on the key assuming I could use the backup certificate stored on a flash drive to decrypt the ...
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EFS File encrypted with "System"

We're trying to set up EFS to secure a file share so that only a service account can access the files in it. Everything works fine, until we try to have an FTP process send files to the folder. ...
Bryan Winstead's user avatar
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How do I let the SYSTEM account use EFS encryption?

I want to encrypt some files used by a Windows service running as Local System (i.e. using the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account). Since BitLocker doesn't seem to work with software RAID, EFS seems to be ...
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How to turn off EDP on Windows 10

Since Windows 10 automatically updated to the latest version (November 2015 update I believe), all my EFS files are flagged with a lock icon. And when I copy an EFS-encrypted file to a FAT drive, it ...
Frederik Slijkerman's user avatar
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If Bitlocker is turned on, How to decrypt OS volume when boot up?

I want to know decrypting process when boot up encrypted volume using BitLocker. Because MS says, it is encrypting entire disk drive whether the volume is installed OS or not, which means the file ...
Ki-Hoon Kang's user avatar
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Upgraded to Windows 10, forgot to backup EFS key for encrypted files

I recently upgraded to Windows 10. I realized I forgot to backup my EFS key so no I can't access my encrypted images. I even tried setting myself as the owner of them. Is the key stored in the $...
TheRyan722's user avatar
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1 answer
681 views

Strange temporary "Access denied" error accessing encrypted files

After a system reboot (Win7 x64), an application reported that it couldn't access a file in an EFS-encrypted directory. Accessing via programs gave "Access denied". Permissions were normal and fine. ...
Norman's user avatar
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Accessing Windows encrypted files on another PC

I am new to WIndows EFS and find it very useful except with a problem, can't access those files in another Windows PC. I find some tutorials on how to access them in other windows PCs(1, 2). After ...
RogUE's user avatar
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How to use backup EFS certificate to decrypt encrypted files?

I have some files that were encrypted on a now extinct Windows 7 system. I made sure to backup my keys, this one is called efs.pfx. Double-clicking it launches the Certificate Import Wizard which ...
Louis Waweru's user avatar
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Can I use EFS to encrypt the user directory?

I want to know if doing so would prevent windows from logging in to the user or not, has anyone tried to encrypt the user profile folder or the windows folder?
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EFS locked me out all on its own?

I have a handful of files that are encrypted on disk. I am unable to access them or remove the encryption. I was able to access these files somewhat recently, as I can see when I copied some of them ...
Brad's user avatar
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Will enabling BitLocker remove EFS from already encrypted files in Windows 8.1?

There are a few files on my Windows 8.1 machine that are encrypted using EFS - BitLocker is currently disabled. I want to know whether BitLocker will look for, and remove EFS encryption from files if ...
Dan Harris's user avatar
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1 answer
5k views

BitLocker vs. Encrypting File System (EFS) on Windows 7

So BitLocker encrypts the entire hard drive, while EFS encrypts individual files. Is there any difference in the way that they implement the encryption? Do they both use your user account password as ...
Egghead99's user avatar
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what are the commands to reocver EFS encryption keys from the domain recovery agent?

they are in this video but i can not see the commands would really appreciate if anyone could help , been trying to do this for hours now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meQHYNVZYdY
topcat's user avatar
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2 answers
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Accessing EFS-encrypted files after resetting Windows password

I have some EFS-encrypted files in Windows. The owning user account is protected by a password, which can be easily bypassed (i.e. reset) by many tools and methods. So what will happen to these ...
ICTAddict's user avatar
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3 votes
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Decrypt EFS-encrypted file (I do have certificate backup)

I have an encrypted folder on a Windows 8 machine, which was encrypted by another user-account (which I cannot boot into due to a corrupted profile). But I do have the private-key backup certificate ...
jitbit's user avatar
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How to set the "encrypt" attribute on the root folder?

There is an "Encrypt contents to secure data" checkbox for every folder on the drive, except the root folder. It's accessible by right-clicking a folder, and selecting "Advanced" properties:   &...
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Restoring data from encrypted WinXP partition image

EDIT: it seems that the partition is encrypted with a full-disk encryption software that uses TPM—I don't see any other way the partition could be looking like it's fully encrypted, while at the same ...
Erik Kaplun's user avatar
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Backup EFS encryption key generated, but no encrypted files? Track what caused the key creation

In I started getting a weird message "Encrypting file system - Back up your file encryption key" a user experiences a prompt that I also experienced yesterday for the first time. Now the ...
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cant get windows cipher.exe adduser to work

I'm trying to find examples on how to properly use cipher.exe. Most of the info I've found doesn't cover adding users so they can also view the encrypted file. I'm trying to create a script which ...
zako42's user avatar
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2 answers
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EFS not available on Windows 7 Home Premium: workarounds?

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 ...
John Sonderson's user avatar
2 votes
3 answers
2k views

Encrypting %userprofile% using EFS?

Is it safe to encrypt my Windows 7 %userprofile% folder using EFS ? i.e. are applications or system logon going to be affected?
user268104's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
564 views

Recover EFS Certificate from dead Motherboard

I created an encrypted file with Windows 7 32-bit on a NAS (mybooklive) and backed the file (not the certificate) up locally to the computer's hard drive. The original Win7 computer had a motherboard ...
trmills's user avatar
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What folders to encrypt with EFS on Windows 7 laptop? [closed]

Since I've been using my laptop more as a laptop recently (carrying it around) I am now evaluating my strategy to protect confidential information in case it is stolen. Keep in mind that my laptop is ...
Joe Schmoe's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
602 views

Encrypting a folder

I'm familiar with bitlocker, having been using it for a while, but I am looking at just encrypting a folder instead. But I just don't understand the options it's giving me. When I right-click a ...
Gavin Williams's user avatar