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How do I encrypt/decrypt a file?
John Savill
January 8, 2000
1 Min Read
A. Encrypting and compressing a file/folder is mutually exclusive, youcan encrypt a file or compress it, not both.
To decrypt a file perform the following:
Start Explorer
Right click on the file/folder
Select Properties
Click here to view imageUnder the General tab click Advanced
Check the 'Encrypt contents to secure data'. Click OK
Click Apply on the properties
If you selected a file it will ask if you want to encrypt the parent folder to prevent the file from becoming unencrypted during modification. Click OK If you selected a folder if will ask if you want to encrypt subfolders and files also. Click OK.
Click OK to the main dialog
To decrypt repeat the above but unselect the box. If you decrypt a folder itwill ask if you also want to decrypt all child folders and files.
Compression of an encrypted file will not save in most case. Encrypt compressed file makes sense.There is a technical issue here. It is not because of reparse point. Neither compression nor encryption uses reparse point. Thereason we do not support both is backuprestore. We provide a way for backup operator to backup encrypted file. The operator has no way to read thefile in plaintext. The NTFS compression result depends on the disk cluster. If the backup source and the restore destination has the different clustersize, NTFS could not restore the encrypted data because NTFS does not know how to understand the data.
Sparse and encryption.
Encryption is compatible with sparse. In other words, you can encrypt a sparse file and still keep it a sparse file.
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