Re: user does not have acces privileges

Well what happens is when you encrypt a file with EFS a certificate and
private key is created for you and stored in your user profile. When you
reinstalled XP if you formatted your system drive then your EFS
certificate/private key was destroyed and unless you made the effort to
backup your EFS certificate/private key to a password protected .pfx file in
offline media or have an intact copy of your user profile from a time after
that file was encrypted on the previous operating system there is no way to
recover that encrypted file since your EFS private key is needed and any
attempts are wasted time since the file is encrypted with 3DES. Wish I had
better news. --- Steve



"Zorro" <Zorro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BCFFA034-3E36-4E0F-B8E7-C2590FF3F28B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Let's solve the confusion!

1. I made an MS Word file in My Documents
2. Put password on by Tools>Options>Security>Password to open+Password to
modify+Read only
3. Right click>Properties>Advanced>Encrypt contents to secure data
5. Backup file by copying onto D: drive
4. Harddrive failure (not right after, it was a year later)
5. Windows XP reinstallation
6. I can not open the file anymore, error message: "Word can not open the
document: user does not have access privileges (D:\...\Bank details.doc)"

What is interesting:

I made a new file into the same folder with my new Windows.
I was playing with encryption and ownership to find out what was wrong and
how to fix it.
And interestingly I managed to make the new file behave like the old ones
(without Windows reinstallation).
Unfortunately I can't remember what have I done exactly but the result was
same.
After I tried to do this again, this time I wrote every step down, but I
could not mess it up again (so far).
I'm still playing with this to find out what makes the file inaccessible
but
I don't have too much time so I will give up soon or later.

I hope the confusions are gone!

Regards,

Zorro



.

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