EFS in Windows XPHave you ever thought how to make some files or folders unaccessible to anyone except my-self? Certainly, you can purchase third party software providing various solutions, but are you wonder how to do it quickly and easily using just your Windows XP tools?

In this tutorial I will show you how to easily encrypt files using EFS and make them unaccessible to anybody.

Encrypting File System (EFS) uses user's public key to encrypt files. Public Key is assigned to user's SID number that means only user with right SID number will be able to have an access to encrypted files. In case user account has been removed and new user account has been created with identical username and password (for example due to system reinstallation), access to files encrypted by other SID will not be guaranteed.

How to encrypt files and folders using EFS?

For this demonstration I have created text file with some 'secret' content:

 File with confident content
 Pic. 01

and saved it in my folder. You can use file or files you want to keep in secret. Next thing you need to do is to highlight folder, file or selected multiple files you want to encrypt,

 File with confident content
 Pic. 02

right-click highlighted file and choose Properties:

 Click Advanced
 Pic. 03

Than click Advanced... button:

 Tick encrypt contents...
 Pic. 04

tick Encrypt contents to secure data and confirm by clicking OK. If you can not see such options in your Properties it may be caused by different file system on your hard drive's partition (for example FAT32). To use EFS you have to have NTFS on your partition. You can move your file/files to other partition using NTFS or consider coverting actual partition to NTFS. Click here to find out how to quickly convert FAT partition into NTFS partition without need to format and erase data.

 Choose what do you want to encrypt
 Pic. 05

Now you have to choose what do you want to encrypt? Just file/files or files and parent folder? And that is it ! The file has been encrypted and from now on nobody has an access to this file except you.

 Other users will have no access to your encrypted files
 Pic. 06

Encrypted files should be exposed in green colour:

 Encrypted files should be seen in green
 Pic. 07

If you can not see this file in green, you may need to adjust folder settings. In such case go to top menu Tools>Folder options... and switch to View tab:

 Adjust settings to see encrypted files in green
 Pic. 08

find on the list below and tick: Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color option. Now you should see all encrypted files in green.
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avatar Capresso
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Thanks for this tutorial saved me from some trouble.
Monday 16 November 2009, 16:54
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I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Tuesday 29 June 2010, 08:33
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 April 2009 18:31 )