7
1
I'm running Windows 7 Professional.
Is there any way to make a user's directory (anything under C:\Users\Foo) encrypted? I'm looking for something like Apple's FileVault feature.
When I login as an administrator and attempt to access a standard user account's files, I can access them without having to enter any password. This means that standard user accounts are not encrypted by default. I'd prefer to use a standard user account but am willing to use an Administrator account if it's the only way.
One important thing to realize is that I'm not simply looking for a solution that prevents access to the folder. I'm looking for a solution that actually encrypts the hard drive such that if someone were to plug in that hard drive to another computer, they wouldn't be able to access the user's folder's content. Additionally, the encryption algorithm should be fairly secure and not use an old/weak algorithm. The solution doesn't have to encrypt the entire hard drive, just anything under the user's folder.
Senseful
Posted 2011-02-12T03:15:17.047
Reputation: 3 285
@grawity I just tested on Windows 7, and it is actually not possible to encrypt that folder. I get a generic "Access denied" error if I try. I enabled encryption on my home folder, skipped the folders I was not allowed to encrypt when prompted, rebooted, and everything works as usual. – Zero3 – 2016-06-26T12:52:29.377
1I found that Chrome needs
...\AppData\Local\Tempunencrypted in order to update though. Likely because the update process wants to run an executable from there using another user account. – Zero3 – 2016-06-26T13:36:01.5002Make sure you don't accidentally encrypt the decryption key itself. In Windows XP, they're kept in
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\SystemCertificates. Make a backup of your EFS key just in case; if things go wrong, it can be imported to another account for decryption. – user1686 – 2011-02-12T20:58:23.427