Vista Encryption?

[Daze N. Knights]

I'm running Vista 32-bit Ultimate RTM, and I'm not interested in using
encryption on it, but now have questions. After having Vista installed
for about a month now, a Windows message (& icon in the taskbar)
suddenly popped up asking me if I wanted to backup my encryption
certificate and key, which I didn't know I had. Wondering about this, I
checked BitLocker in my Control Panel, and found that it says my drive
configuration is unsuitable for BitLocker encryption, and that a "TPM,"
which is required for BitLocker encryption, was not found. Comments, please?

 

[LaRoux]

TPM stands for "Trusted Platform Module" (I believe) and it's a chip on the
system board capable of creating and storing keys. OEMs are very spotty on
their inclusion of this and even spottier on documenting it.

As far as BitLocker is concerned, this is what is used to do the encryption
and decryption. The idea is that even if your hard drive were stolen, it
could only be read via that system running on that motherboard with that
TPM. Of course the threat of motherboard or TPM failure necessitates the
ability to backup your keys to an external source.

I think there's a workaround for using BitLocker without TPM using software
based or USB based keys but don't remember the details.

 

[Dennis Pack]

Daze:
Type "EFS" in the search box, open "Windows Vista Security
Guide.doc". Chapter 3 or Chapter 5 should give the explanation. Have a great
day.

 

[Dale]

Should you ever use Encrypted File System (EFS) you'll need that key to
unencrypt files on another PC, or after a re-install of Windows. If you
never use EFS, I don't think you'll need it. If you do use EFS, back it up
many times and many places!

Dale

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Odd. I have a month-old, Intel DP965LT motherboard. I wonder why it
wouldn't be capable of using BitLocker?

 

[Daze N. Knights]

I typed EFS in the search box and no "Windows Vista Security Guide.doc"
was revealed. So much for that.

 

[Daze N. Knights]

Ah. So I gather this message pops up whether one has ever used EFS or not?

 

[Guest]

The EFS balloon appears only if someone (or something) generates a new EFS
certificate and sets that certificate as your EFS current key. Since you
have not encrypted files, yourself, something else has done that for you. We
know of two programs, so far, that will do this: offline files enabled for
encryption and Groove. There may be others. Do either of these apply to
you? If not, can you think back to another application you may have been
using that could have caused encryption to happen under the covers?

Thanks.
Pat