On a standalone machine running Windows 7 Ultimate I have encrypted some data using EFS. I want to back up the certificate to a removable drive, as is recommended for EFS best practice. Ultimately I want to be able to recover the encrypted data from another machine in the event of system failure. I need to export the private key, but when I go through the process, the option to export the private key is grayed out. Looking at the certificate, it shows that the private key is present. I am using an account with administrator privileges. What must I do to export the private key? If I cannot export it and need to request a new certificate (after decrypting my data), what can I do to make the private key exportable? The certificate is generated automatically during the EFS process. Thanks in advance for any input.

Hi, Did you follow this article to export EFS key? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Back-up-Encrypting-File-System-EFS-certificate If the issue persists, you can try to create another administrator account and logon for test. Regards, Leo Huang Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.