Win XP built in file encryption - few questions

Golden Ape · 5 Feb 2006 at 17:09

I'm just wondering whether anyone uses this and what your thoughts about it are. Basically I'm looking for something to protect files on a laptop against oportunistic theives - i.e. if someone nicks my machine I don't want to be handing them all my bank account details, that sort of stuff. I'm not looking for the sort of tool that could protect me from the FBI or something.

One thing I'm slightly worried about is backup up of keys. I've kind of heard about this and have a rough idea of what it is and how it works (basically a way of getting your files back if windows screws up and you need to reinstal). Is it practical though? I wonder if I'd back up the keys, lose the backup and then have XP crash?

While I'm at it - backing up encrypted files - how does that work? Presumably the built in encryption works at the level of the file system so as soon as a file is backup to a new location it's no longer protected?

So what I guess I'm asking is - what would you do? Are there any better (free/cheap) solutions out there?

Thanks

Golden Ape · 6 Feb 2006 at 11:43

Ah thanks - that's the sort of thing that I really want to avoid!

Golden Ape · 7 Feb 2006 at 09:51

|Ric| really? I'd thought that it was really quite difficult to get at encyrpted files (assuming you didn't know the admin password)? I guess I'm partly basing this experience of posts on these forums - people loose access to their account, haven't backed up the encyrption key and pretty much can never get their files back. I've a vague recollection that something has changed since XP (or perhapse service pack 1 or 2) that means even if you reset the admin password and can access the admin account you still can't access files that were encrypted under previous password.

Mind you, I'm by no means an expert on any of this stuff!

Golden Ape · 7 Feb 2006 at 19:00

Ah interesting, thanks for that. Sounds like NT encryption is good enought for my needs - that is, if I can be trusted to keep a safe back up of my keys!