Hi- We are looking for a way to ensure that file encruption is completly disabled on our vista workstations and on one ofour windows 2003 file servers. I have read that by modifying the ntfsdisableencryption key in the registry this can be done. 1. Is there anywhere else in the registry I need to touch? 2. can this be achived via group policy as well? thank you!

Hello, I assume that you are working in Windows Server 2003 domain environment and you would like to disable the file encryption by using either registry keys or Group Policy method. If this is not the case, please let us know. For registry key method, please refer to the following webpage. How to Disable or Enabled EFS Encryption in Vista http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/102501-encryption-disable-enable.html For Group Policy method, you can change the following Group Policies on a Windows server 2003 DC. 1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Active Directory Users and Computers. 2. View the appropriate node for your domain, right click this node, and then click Properties. 3. Click the Group Policy tab, click the Default Domain Policy GPO, and then click Edit. Note that you do not need to use the Default Domain Policy, you can use a new GPO such as Disable EFS to accomplish the same task. 4. In the Group Policy Editor Snap-In, view the following node: Default Domain Policy\Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Public Key Policies\ 5. Right-click the Encrypting File System node and select Properties. 6. Under the General tab, please clear the check box before Allow users to encrypt files using Encrypting File System (EFS) 7. Click OK. NOTE: Users on client workstations to which this policy is applied will be unable to encrypt files or folders. Also, if users attempt to apply encryption attributes, they will receive the following error message: Error Applying Attributes An error occurred applying attributes to the file: file name This machine is disabled for file encryption. Hope it works on your computer!