Locked out of Encrypted files

[Hans]

Hi,

Wins periodically requests me to change my logon password.

I was locked out of my files after one change. I tried
many things:
1.) Cipher
2.) Unchecking the encrypt option in files.
3.) Nothing works.

Apparently there is a sercurity certificate and a private
key thinggy.

How do recall the certificate? If all esle fails, can I
hack my own files to retrive the information?

Thanks in advance.

Hans

[Roger Abell]

Change your password back.
If necessary, change the local policy to allow you
to reuse the old password.
This should reestablish your access to EFS files.

There are two ways for an admin account to change
passwords, one to reset it (or any account's pwd)
and one to change it (only an account's own pwd)
This last one requires knowledge of the current pwd.
Use only this last way, as the other breaks EFS access
by design as a security safeguard.

If this is what you did do (use the correct way to change
the pwd) then make sure your XP is up-to-date on service.
Some pre-Sp1 systems, especially non-English, had some
issues.

--
Roger Abell
Microsoft MVP (Windows Server System: Security)
MCSE (W2k3,W2k,Nt4) MCDBA
"Hans" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
>
> Wins periodically requests me to change my logon password.
>
> I was locked out of my files after one change. I tried
> many things:
> 1.) Cipher
> 2.) Unchecking the encrypt option in files.
> 3.) Nothing works.
>
> Apparently there is a sercurity certificate and a private
> key thinggy.
>
> How do recall the certificate? If all esle fails, can I
> hack my own files to retrive the information?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Hans
>