A Little late but anyway:
Microsoft has a casebase article on how to remove Windows XP encryption.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308993&sd=tech
How To Remove File Encryption in Windows XP
View products that this article applies to.
Article ID : 308993
Last Review : July 14, 2004
Revision : 1.0
This article was previously published under Q308993
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SUMMARY
How to Remove Encryption from a File
How to Remove Encryption from a Folder
REFERENCES
APPLIES TO
SUMMARY
This article describes how to decrypt a file that been encrypted by
using Encrypting File System (EFS) in Windows XP.
Encryption is the process of converting data into a format that cannot
be read by others. You can use EFS to automatically encrypt your data
when it is stored on the hard disk.
NOTE: Only the user who encrypts a file can recover data that has been
encrypted, unless the user specifies a recovery agent before they
encrypted the files. To make sure that you have the ability to decrypt
files in the future, you should always export your certificate and
private key and keep them in a safe place. For additional information
about how to to this, click the article number below to view the
article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
241201 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241201/EN-US/) How To Back Up
Your Encrypting File System Private Key in Windows 2000
How to Remove Encryption from a File
Only the following people can decrypt an encrypted file. ? The user
who encrypted the file
? Any user who was designated as a recovery agent before the file was encrypted
? Any user who has the public key or private key for the recovery
agent or the user that originally encrypted the file
? Any user who has been granted access to the file
For additional information about how to grant access to an encrypted
file, click the article number below to view the article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
308991 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308991/EN-US/) How To Share
Access to an Encrypted File
Members of the Administrators group cannot decrypt files unless the
person who encrypted the files designated them as recovery agents
before encrypting the files.
NOTE: You must be the original encrypter of the file or a designated
recovery agent for the file to use the following steps. If you are not
authorized to remove encryption, you receive the following error
message:
Error Applying Attributes
An error occurred applying attributes to the file:
Path:\Filename
Access is denied
To remove encryption from a file: 1. Use Windows Explorer to browse to
the location of the encrypted file that you want to decrypt.
2. Right-click the encrypted file, and then click Properties.
3. On the General tab, click Advanced.
4. Click to clear the Encrypt contents to secure data check box, click
OK, and then click OK again.
How to Remove Encryption from a Folder
NOTE: You must be the original encrypter of the file or a designated
recovery agent for the file to use the following steps. If you are not
authorized to remove encryption, you receive the following error
message:
Error Applying Attributes
An error occurred applying attributes to the file:
Path:\Filename
Access is denied
1. Use Windows Explorer to browse to the location of the encrypted
folder that you want to decrypt.
2. Right-click the folder, and then click Properties.
3. On the General tab, click Advanced.
4. Click to clear the Encrypt contents to secure data check box, click
OK, and then click OK again.
5. When you are prompted to confirm the attribute change: ? If you
want to decrypt only the folder, click Apply the changes to this
folder only, and then click OK.
? If you want to decrypt the folder and its contents, click Apply
changes to this folder, subfolders and files, and then click OK.
Back to the top
REFERENCES
For additional information about using file encryption in Windows XP,
click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:
307877 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307877/EN-US/) How To Encrypt
a File in Windows XP
308989 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308989/EN-US/) How To Encrypt
a Folder in Windows XP
308991 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308991/EN-US/) How To Share
Access to an Encrypted File
223316 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223316/EN-US/) Best Practices
for Encrypting File System |
