EFS - Backup Certificate & Keys???

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Gallagher
  • Start date Start date
J

John Gallagher

Can someone explain why I am getting this message to backup my certicate &
keys?

I am using Vista Ultimate but have not set up EFS and so far have no need to
do so. Yet I began receiving a message yesterday stating that I should back
up my certicates and keys from "Encrypting File System". I did not know why
and elected to try to backup. Needless to say, this was fruitless since the
dialog asked me the file name to backup and I had no idea what it would be.
I then elected to be notified again later but the message now appears on
each reboot.

I seem to remember someone stating that this may have something to do with
OneNote which is on my machine but has yet to be used.

The message seems to have started after I downloaded a compressed file from
Apple (the one for the iPhone) and extracted it. It has since been deleted.
I do not know if this is related to the problem.

I am really lost here. I am tempted to pick the option to "Never back up"
since I do not think I have any encrypted files.

Is there a way to check whether any encrypted files exist and what their
source is (since I did not do it)? And does anyone know why this message
would all of a sudden just start popping up? More importantly, what should I
do to get rid of it?

Thanks for any help.

John G.
 
I'm also having the same problem. I started getting messages yesterday asking
me to back up my file encryption certificate and key but I've not set
anything to be encrypted. I'm now getting the message every time I reboot.

How do I discover which files or folders on my system have been encrypted?
And why?

John
 
Ok I should have tried this before posting earlier.

I just tried the CIPHER /U /N command and found that 5 Adobe Photoshop Brush
sets I downloaded yesterday were set to be encrypted. They were downloaded as
ZIP files and I dragged and dropped them from the zip into the
Photoshop/Presets/Brushes folder. At no point did I set them to be encrypted
and I suspect they were made on a Mac. So how did these files get set for
encryption? This seems like something that will happen again and again.

For now I've set the files to be unencrypted. I don't yet know if this will
make my reminders to backup my certificate and key go away.

John
 
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