Page 1 of 1

Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:28 pm
by lazy_boy
Hi I've got Windows 7 and I'm looking to encrypt my HDD I've been told TrueCrypt is a good crypting system but is it good enough or is there anything better than that? Thanks

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:00 pm
by bthylafh
I'm using Truecrypt on my work laptop. It's pretty decent, and it's free; you should use it.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 12:00 am
by Madman
If I read somewhere correctly, bitlocker encryption can be used for system wide encryption as well.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:55 am
by notfred
This isn't really a Networking question so I've moved it to the Windows forum.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 10:58 am
by Usacomp2k3
If you have Enterprise or Ultimate, you can use bitlocker. Don't know how well it works though. We have PGP at work (used to have truecrypt) and it's a kludge. Note very secure, IMHO either.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 1:38 pm
by Ryu Connor
Bitlocker works well, but the fact you need either Enterprise of Ultimate seems to be the hitch for most people.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:16 pm
by dextrous
We use McAfee Endpoint Encryption here. It's aimed at the enterprise, but IMHO, it's not really ready for prime time in an enterpise environment.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 3:37 pm
by BIF
We also use Endpoint.

Endpoint works in a single-signon environment, and so it automatically changes your encryption key whenever you change your Windows logon password.

I have never had any problems, even when Endpoint was owned and provided by another company (Guardian Edge, I think). Never an issue with it in either incarnation...that I know of. My biggest fears for a personal system would always be

1. getting locked out by mistake
2. being unable to manage, diagnose, repair, or recover my hard drive partitions with normal utilities

But in a centrally-managed corporate environment, we have people to take care of concern #1.

Additionally, we have centralized backup and recovery (and nobody really keeps critical data on their local hard drives anymore), so concern #2 is mostly a non-issue.

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 7:42 pm
by absurdity
lazy_boy, are you just working on a standalone system? Truecrypt would probably be the way to go.

Bitlocker requires either a TPM or a USB flash drive to store the key, something to keep in mind. Link: http://bit.ly/HHvT6T

I haven't worked with PGP, but I'm guessing the product hasn't improved much since Symantec bought it (few things do).

Re: Encrypting Windows 7

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:40 am
by Madman
What are your requirements? Maybe it's easier to have a Linux with build in encryption on either VHD or spare partition for sensitive data?