"Encrypt Contents to Secure..."

[Guest]

I am sure this question has been covered and or answered a billion times in
this NG, but does one ABSOLUTELY have to buy WinXP Pro to use the above
function to protect folders? Also, once a folder is encrypted, can the
Search function in Word find specific items therein, if a user is authorized
to access that encrypted folder?

I only ask to find out if I have to buy 2 more copies of an OS to get that
additional security...Thanks

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Yes you need XP Pro to have EFS file encryption. If the user has the file
open then they can search it or do anything because the file is decrypted at
that point. You can download an evaluation copy of Windows 2003 Server if
you want to see if EFS meets your specific needs. There are third party
programs that can do encryption on XP Home. --- Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;223316 --- EFS
best practices.
http://www.snapfiles.com/shareware/security/swencrypt.html --- file
encryption programs.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/evaluation/trial/default.mspx
--- MS evaluation downloads

 

[Guest]

Windows 2000 has EFS. Whichever you use, the data has to be on an NTFS
partition.

However, I think it's also important to weigh the pro's and con's of
encrypting - Would loss of the data be a more serious happening than its
being leaked? If so, is it worth the increased risk of malfunction/loss which
all encyption-systems incur?

In nine cases out of ten, if you review your actual security needs you'll
find they could be better-met by putting the data on a fileserver in a secure
physical location, and using share access-rights to protect it from
unauthorised users. That also covers the question of who is in charge of the
data (the sysop) how it will be backed-up, and any security-risks associated
with those backups falling into the wrong hands.