Disabling automatic Device Encryption on new devices running Windows 8.1

Q: How can I disable automatic Device Encryption on some our new devices that we are provisioning with the Windows 8.1 operating system?

A: Device encryption is turned on by default on any clean install of Windows 8.1. If you do not want this automatic protection for some of your devices you must configure the unattend installation file to enforce the following registry setting: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlBitLockerPreventDeviceEncryption (REG_DWORD) and set it to True (1)