How to Disable and Enable File Encryption in Vista
Published by: Codrut Nistor, in Tips & Tricks
November1st2007
One of Vista's new features that may come in really handy is its ability to encrypt files and folders, and if you want to remember this well, keep in mind these three letters:EFS (Encrypting File System). EFS is a feature enabled by default, but if you're not using it at all, or you don't want your kids to hide their unfinished homework from you, then disabling it could be a good idea, and we'll show you how to do it, as usual...
Before everything else, a little warning - we're going to change a value in the registry, so be very careful! If you do things right, there's no chance to happen something unwanted, but take all necessary precautions, especially be careful to decrypt encrypted folders before disabling this feature!
- Start the registry editor - simply tap Windows key+R and type "regedit" in the Run window.
- As soon as the registry editor opens, carefully go to the following location
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem.
- Locate the entry called NtfsDisableEncryption.
- Right click on it, and choose Modify.
- To disable EFS, enter 1, and to enable it again at a later time, get back here and change this value to 0.
- Restart the computer to apply changes.
That's all, we hope you'll find this trick useful, but be careful and use it wisely. After all, if it's not broken, you don't need to fix it, right? Good luck!
Before everything else, a little warning - we're going to change a value in the registry, so be very careful! If you do things right, there's no chance to happen something unwanted, but take all necessary precautions, especially be careful to decrypt encrypted folders before disabling this feature!
- Start the registry editor - simply tap Windows key+R and type "regedit" in the Run window.
- As soon as the registry editor opens, carefully go to the following location
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem.
- Locate the entry called NtfsDisableEncryption.
- Right click on it, and choose Modify.
- To disable EFS, enter 1, and to enable it again at a later time, get back here and change this value to 0.
- Restart the computer to apply changes.
That's all, we hope you'll find this trick useful, but be careful and use it wisely. After all, if it's not broken, you don't need to fix it, right? Good luck!
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2 Comments on How to Disable and Enable File Encryption in Vista
On 06/18/2008 at 5:52 am Ian said:
I tried that, it was already a 1 instead of 0 and i tried changing the 1 to a 0 and then back again, i still can't get the file encryption box to check. Thanks
On 06/18/2008 at 5:20 pm Codrut Nistor said:
I am glad it helped!
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