cipher /k hangs

[Guest]

I'm having problems using the Encrypting File System from just ONE account on
my Win XP Pro machine (SP2 applied)

With all other accounts, EFS use works as expected. With this ONE account,
an effort to encrypt a folder never seems to complete.

It looks like no EFS certificate is ever generated.

If I go to command line and use "ciper /k" to try to generate an EFS
certificate, THAT command ALSO "hangs" and never seems to complete. If I
subsequently attempt another "cipher /k" command, I receive the message
"Overlapped I/O operation is in progress". This last result is obtained even
after a complete system powerdown/restart.

The account in question is the main account used for most work on this
computer, so it's worth a little work to see if I can get EFS running
correctly with THIS account...

Anyone have a suggestion to offer?

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Is anything shown in the logs via Event Viewer at the time that the problem
occurs?? When you use the mmc snapin for certificate for user while that
user is logged on does it show that the user has any certificates? It could
possibly be a problem with corruption for that user's profile as the EFS
private key is stored in the user's profile. --- Steve

 

[Guest]

Steve,

Thanks for the suggestions... my replies follow...

No "encrypted file system" certificates are shown for the problem account.
With other accounts that are having NO problems, such certificates ARE
present. I actually had checked this earlier, but didn't mention it that
explicitly just to keep my starting message a bit shorter...

A QUICK check of the event viewer shows no entries that seem clearly related
to THIS problem... I'll have a closer look while recreating the situation
where "cipher" hangs...

 

[Guest]

I now returned to the problem account, issued a command line "cipher /k"
command with the same result indicated in my original message. Upon checking
the event viewer ("system" events), I see no entry corresponding to the date
and time at which I recreated this problem...

Still very interested in suggestions...

 

[Steven L Umbach]

I would think that the problem is possibly related to the user profile. If
it is not a huge deal you may want to backup his user entire user profile
and possibly using the File and Settings Transfer wizard. Then delete his
user profile using system properties/advanced - user profile settings while
logged on as an administrator. When he logs an again a new user profile will
be created based on the default user profile and then you can restore his
data/settings. If you do that have him try to encrypt a file before you
restore his profile data/settings. In particular the user's
certificate/private key is stored in documents and
settings\username\application data\Microsoft\crypto\RSA. So you first
[before considering deleting the user profile] might want to make sure the
user has permissions to that which normally would be full control and that
system has full control. As a test you could have the user navigate to and
try to copy and delete a test file in that folder. It may also be worthwhile
running Check Disk on that partition selecting the option to automatically
fix file errors. --- Steve