Accessing Win2000 files in WinXP

[=?iso-8859-15?Q?Eskild_Muri_B=F8?=]

Hi

I used to have Win2000 installed on my computer. Now I have taken
Microsofts advice to uppgrade to WinXP and mostly its working fine. I do
have one problem. I have two disks with files used in
Win2000. When looking at these files in WinXP they are marked as green and
I cant open them. Administrator or not. I only get the error message that
I have no permission to read. The files are
projects I've been working on for my company and I need to get access to
them

What can I do to unlock/open the files??

Are they encrypted or is it just problems with permission?


Can anyone help me?


rgs
Eskild Bø

 

[george]

Oh, ooooh,

marked green = encrypted.
Did you do an upgrade to XP in place?
Please say you did and you still have *all* the userids defined that you did
have in w2000.
If so then you might just be lucky.
If you happen to know who (which userid) was working on those files, logon
as that userid and decrypt the files.
If you don't know, get out the XP Resource kit and look for a utility called
efsinfo.exe.
run that in the folder where those files are and it will tell you who
encrypted them, so you'll know who to logon as.
If you did a *new* install on top of your existing w2000 installation and
have gotten new userids, then I'm afraid there is nothing you can do
anymore. Kiss those files goodbey, because there is no way you can get them
decrypted.
By doing the new install, new encryption keys have been generated, but more
importantly, the old ones have been lost.

sorry for the bad news
george

 

[george]

for future reference:

if you plan to (or don't plan and just do) use encryption (EFS) always make
sure you export your personal Certificate(s) to a safe location, so you can
get back at your encrypted files.
To export:
start, run, mmc, add/remove snapin from file menu, choose Certificates
snapin. Go to Personal and right click the certificate(s), all tasks and
export.
DO, please DO export the private key (as selectale option in the wizard) and
just follow the rest of the wizard.
If you want to protect your private key assign a password to the exported
file (and don't forget that password!!!!)
You'll need it if ever you want to or need to import your older private key
again.

hth
george

 

[Alex Nichol]

I used to have Win2000 installed on my computer. Now I have taken
Microsofts advice to uppgrade to WinXP and mostly its working fine. I do
have one problem. I have two disks with files used in
Win2000. When looking at these files in WinXP they are marked as green and
I cant open them. Administrator or not. I only get the error message that
I have no permission to read. The files are
projects I've been working on for my company and I need to get access to
them

What can I do to unlock/open the files??

Are they encrypted

Green is usually the color for encrypted NTFS files. In which case you
need to recover the encryption certificates from their recovery backup.
And if you have not got that the files are toast.