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This tip is about the how To Enable/ Disable Windows Encrypting File System (EFS) Feature in Windows 11. So read this free guide, How To Enable/ Disable Windows Encrypting File System (EFS) Feature in Windows 11 step by step. If you have query related to same article you may contact us.
How To Enable/ Disable Windows Encrypting File System (EFS) Feature in Windows 11 – Guide
Encrypting File System (EFS) is an encryption service found in Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise and Education. BitLocker’s cousin, which can encrypt entire drives at once, EFS lets you encrypt individual files and folders. Encryption is tied to the PC user, so if a user other than the user who encrypted the files is logged in, those files will remain inaccessible.
EFS encryption is not as secure as other encryption methods such as BitLocker because the key that unlocks the encryption is saved locally. There is also a chance that the data will leak to temporary files as the entire drive is not encrypted.
On supported versions of Windows 2000 onwards, a native encryption tool called Encrypting File System (EFS) allows you to securely encrypt files and folders, protecting them from unauthorized access. It also means that other users sharing your PC can do the same and encrypt as many files as they like. As such, in this tutorial, I will show you how to safely disable EFS in Windows 11. Before I begin, I’ll say the following. When you encrypt a file or folder using the built-in Windows Encrypting File System tool, it is recognized as (encrypted) by green text in the file / folder name as in the image below.
Disable EFS using the command prompt
Open Command Prompt in administrator mode. To do this, start by typing cmd in the Windows search box and when the Command Prompt appears in the search results, right click on it and click the Run as administrator option. To disable Encrypting File System (EFS) feature, copy, paste the following command into the command prompt and press the Enter key.
fsutil behavior set disable encryption 1
If you want to enable Encrypting File System (EFS) feature, copy, paste the given command into the command prompt and press the Enter key.
fsutil behavior set disable encryption 0
Disable EFS by changing registry editors
Press the WIN + R keys together to open the Run dialog. when opens up, type regedit and press the Enter key. The Registry Editor window opens up. Then navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion EFS
See the screenshot below and make sure the path is correct. Look for an entry called EfsConfiguration in the right pane of the window corresponding to the EFS key. If there is no such entry, right-click anywhere in the right pane of the window, click New, then DWORD Value (32-bit). Name the newly created DWORD value EfsConfiguration.
Double-click the newly created DWORD to edit its value data. To disable EFS feature, enter 1 in the Value data field as shown in the following screenshot. To enable EFS feature, enter 0 in the value data field as shown.
Disable EFS using services
Final note
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