encrypted file problem

susuandme

I was wondering about the following question I came across."If you copy an encrypted file to a non-encrypted folder on a volume that has been formatted with NTFS , then what effect will this action have on the file's encrhypted status ? Thanks, Rich And why please, I thought "copy" inherits the targets state.thanks

Tryntotechit

The file will no longer be encrypted because of inheritance of the parent folder. With encrypting file system, you can create an encryted folder which includes all child entities or you can specify each individual file that you want to be encrypted. Hope this helps.

royal

Eh? That's not true. An encrypted file always stays encrypted. The only way an EFS file will be decrypted is when you transmit it over the network and the destination will receive it unecrypted. You're thinking of regular permissions such as Write/Read/Etc won't be copied over due to inheritance taking over on the target folder if the parent folder is set to propagate its settings to the child folder which it does by default.

And why didn't you try this out yourself? This is EXTREMELY easy to test.

pryde7

+1 Why don't you try it yourself?

Encrypt a file and copy it to an NTFS volume. What happens? Play with it, move it on the same volume, different volume, why not a FAT partition.
Hands on!

susuandme

Yes, I did the lab myself


The Encrypted file which was moved to an unencrypted Folder
REMAINED ENCRYPTED. I would've got this wrong on the test
if I hadn't come across it in one of the sample tests.

This goes against everything I have learned about "copying" and "moving"
files on the same partition or volume and on different partitions and volumes.

It is different from what I learned with respect to what happens to "permissions" and "compressed" files.

Is ENCYPTION the only exception to the rule about "moving" and "copying" files and folders ?

I just now copied a compressed file to an "uncompressed folder" and the compression attribute of the file came off, it became uncompressed.

What about permissions ? Is ENCRYPTION the only exception to the rule ?
thanks Ric

susuandme

Are you saying that when sent over the network,

all of the inheritance propagation boxes are "unchecked" and that
it is NOT INHERITED OVER THE NETWORK ? Thanks

I'm just a little confused, maybe you can sort this out for me especially
the Network side of it, rick

royal

Yes, encryption is the only exception. Microsoft did it this way for security reasons.

When I say over the network, I mean if I took an EFS file and uploaded it to SharePoint, FTP, etc... If I transmit it off my system across ethernet, wireless, etc.. the encryption will be stripped from the file.