When I was reading and researching about tablets and security features in my earlier topic in General Computing, there was mention of file encryption in a few of the articles. Since then I have read that Windows 7 has an encryption program called Bitlocker. The catch is that it's not included in Windows 7 Professional which seems rather short sighted by Microsoft to me.

Is it possible to install Bitlocker on my current Win 7 Pro SP1 64 bit OS? Does any member(s) use a file encryption program? I saw this one after doing a Bing search. It appears to be user friendly and efficient. I haven't tried the 30 day trial yet. The company is located in England.

Kruptos2

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Terry

It just goes to show you, it's always something. If it's not one thing it's another!
_Rosanne Rosannadanna

Encrypting a few files or folders...fine

But encrypting a whole drive, I'd want to have an awfully good reason.

I've yet to see a post where someone said gosh encrypting my drive really protected me, but look at the encryption thread on wilders to see the problems people have had.

Pete

It's built into Windows 8.1. Are you sure it isn't in Win 7 Pro? Have you gone into Control Panel and done a search for Bitlocker?

Also, I'm not sure what all the issues are with it, but I recently saw a promotional ad for Casper Imaging that has a version for Bitlocker (if your drive is encrypted, in other words), which I suspect handles almost all the issues with drive encryption, which probably are largely involved with backup and recovery. Is that right, Peter?

Casper was always a good, simple imaging program.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

I would have said with confidence that BitLocker was included in Win 7 Pro but alas it is not.

And I agree with Pete on the question of why.

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You still have EFS in 7 though? Encrypted File System.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Hi Patty

From what I can see Casper imaging is a mac program. There is some other program that is also called Casper that is more a cloning deal. For me Macrium Reflect Std is the imaging program of choice. Simple reliable and fast.

As far as the problems with drive encryption if you look at the forum section on encryption you will see all sorts of issues from passwords, corrupt headers, etc. What I take away from it is don't encrypt your drive. Most likely the one you will be keeping out is yourself.

If you feel you have to protect something, just encrypt a folder, or files.

Pete

Encryption is an interesting topic. There are certainly lots of pitfalls but locking yourself out of your data isn't a really good reason not to do it. Heck, there are lots of things - cars, guns, etc. - that people own that can bite back if not handled properly. I don't do encryption because I just don't want another layer on top of an already complex system. No need to complicate things more if it's not really needed.

If I was going to encrypt I would do the simplest possible and just do it on a folder or files for sure. While I do have information that I want to keep private should somebody steal my machine, I keep it password protected in an obscure corner of my machine. I've always looked at encryption as more of a spy craft tool for really important things but best used in small doses. That's just my simple brain at work.

I do think that a really powerful use of encryption would be for all data traveling over the internet. That's certainly a jungle and a nice encryption layer could help a lot. That's one model that I would favor for sure.

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Best regards,
Manny Carvalho
MS-MVP since 2002

Bingo.

Yup, only thing encrypted on my system is my password document (using AxCrypt). The password needed to get into that document is a mile long. Simple brains think alike, Manny. Oops, did not mean to insult you like that.

Acadia

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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

Peter, this is the program I was talking about:
http://www.fssdev.com/

I have no need of encryption myself. I was asking about what the problems were with Bitlocker (which no one has really answered).

I mentioned EFS (Encrypting File System). This is what that is:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wind ... =windows-7

And this is the difference between EFS and Bitlocker:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... ile-System

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Okay, I downloaded and will test. I know one person who uses it, but he used it to clone the bootable drive. Worked but was a disaster, because he cloned his system before he realized it was totally screwed up. Unfortunately he had no other options, and no previous backups.

Pete

Can't say that this is actually anything wrong with BitLocker Patty but I tried a couple of times and never could get it to work. I must admit that I didn't try very hard.

The problem I had was that my motherboard did not have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM). You are supposed to be able to use a dedicated flash drive instead of TPM but I didn't get it to work. Again, I didn't try real hard.

One concern that I would have would be a case were TPM was present and used. Now the motherboard blows and is replaced by the same make/model board but the encryption info is not on the new TPM. Banged out of the system. I'm sure that there are probably ways around this but haven't really done any research.

If I were seriously going to do this I think that I'd probably try again using a flash drive instead of TPM. At least I could clone the flash drive to have a couple of spares.

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Hi Patty

Okay, I tested Casper. I would say it's neither good, nor simple, and I am not sure it's really an imaging program.

It was a confusing mess, and all it's nomenclature was not at all like any other imaging program I've used. I did finally manage to get an image process going. The full image that takes Macrium only 14 minutes on my system took a full 53 minutes. I then tried to take an incremental. Nothing like that in any menus. So I tried another repeat of the same imaging run. It failed.

I was skeptical of trying a restore as there was no mention of any recovery environment. I initiated the restore and it loaded the image confirmed it was of my c: partition, but the only restore options it gave was to my other internal drives.

I suspect what it was giving me was the option to restore to an external drive that would be bootable.

In short my feeling was No Thanks

Pete

Just curious... Where did imaging come into all this? The only really relevant thing that I see about Casper is that there seems to be a version for use with Bitlocker and another without Bitlocker.

Mayhaps it is time to get back to Terry's question about BitLocker...

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OK. Thanks for checking it out, Peter.

Jay - here's what happened. Peter said there were all kinds of complaints about Bitlocker over at Wilders. I wanted to know the nature of those complaints. No one has yet answered that. I surmised it had to do with backup and restore of an encrypted drive. I mentioned that Casper had a version specifically for drives that used Bitlocker. That would seem to solve the Bitlocker problem.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Hi Patty

To be accurate, the complaints weren't about bit locker specifically, and actually weren't complaints. They were just people who encrypted their hard drives, and now were locked out.

I didn't test with Bit Locker as Win 7x64 Pro which I have doesn't have bit locker, not that I would ever use it if it did.

Given the issues I found with Casper without bit locker I wouldn't have even tried it.

Pete

OK, Pete. Thanks for clearing that up.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Gosh, I didn't know when to jump back in here. You guys were having so much fun I just sat back and listened. Thanks Jay for trying to get the gang back on task!

To Pete and Acadia:
I haven't owned a laptop or tablet yet and was looking into purchasing a tablet such as an ASUS product or Surface RT or Pro 3. Going to file encryption for that reason. Then there is the possibility of a home security breach and the computers get stolen.

I did read Wilders articles and they do give reason for pause until you completely read the rules and understand what you're doing. That seemed to be the biggest issue. People jumped in and started file or drive encryption all the while they didn't do their home work completely. If I do step into these waters I will make sure I read all the instructions and have good backups just in case.

To Patty and Pete:
I have used Casper cloning software for years now without difficulty albeit not on an encrypted drive. I never have had any issues with it's functionality.

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Terry

It just goes to show you, it's always something. If it's not one thing it's another!
_Rosanne Rosannadanna

Hi Terry

Couple of things to consider. If you put files on the laptop the just make a folder for them and encrypt that. Just don't encrypt the whole drive. Also if I was going to have sensitive data on a laptop, I would make sure it has a fingerprint reader to boot up. True someone could take out the drive, but it deter a lot of folks.

Since you use casper a question. Can you do incrementals?

Pete

Thank you for the suggestions Pete. Having a secured folder(s) sounds like the way to go whether on a laptop, tablet or home desktop computer.

I don't understand your question. What do you mean by incrementals?

It allows you to clone specific partitions of a drive or the whole drive. It also allows you to create a bootable system backup that can be used to boot from in case of catastrophic system failure or infection.

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Terry

It just goes to show you, it's always something. If it's not one thing it's another!
_Rosanne Rosannadanna

Hi Terry

Okay. When I image with Macrium I start a chain with a full image. This takes about 14 minutes and on my system is about 61gb. Then after that I take what is called an incremental. This general takes about 3 minutes and the sizes vary between .5g to may 2 gb. Each of the incrementals only records what changed on the system since the last image. So I end up with a chain that can be a base + say 10 incrementals. I can restore back to any one of them.

So say I take an incremental today, and then discover my system was really messed up and didn't realize it. I simply restore the incremental I took 2 days ago, and all is well.

The way Casper works is what screwed up my friend. He did something, and took a Casper clone on his external drive, and then discovered the problem with his system. But at that point his Casper clone also had all the problems. I can see the advantage to Casper, but what you should do his have around 3 drives, and do a back on one, then next use the 2nd drive, and rotate them.

Oh and I assume you have test restored/used the created disk. If not you need to, as other wise you don't know if they will really work

Pete

I've been interested in Caspar for years but have never purchased or tested it. If it meets the advertising, WITH RELIABILITY, then it is an excellent program. I must admit that I have not followed any posts about Caspar on Wilders, don't know if it is loved or abhorred. But this thread re-triggered my interest in this program. Here is something on their website that might answer Peter's question:

• Create Complete Disk Image Backups for Selectable Point-In-Time Recovery
Casper also makes it easy to maintain complete disk image backups as files, which can be stored virtually anywhere, including on a drive containing other files or remotely on a network attached storage device. Should your system drive fail or become corrupted, you can use these backups to choose a specific point-in-time in which to restore your computer.
• Maintain multiple, full system backups on a single device.
• SmartRestore™ technology makes recovery easy. You choose which backup to restore and let Casper do the rest!

Now, is each "point in time" an incremental or an entire backup?? That quote comes from here: http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/

Acadia

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The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution. -- Emerson

For What I could see with the actual software, they were point in time, but not incremental

I also didn't see anyway to actually restore them back to the c: drive

Finally the time 53 minutes vs 14 for Macrium

Pete I only revise my backup if I install a new program and I'm satisfied with it's performance. I then run Casper to include it in my backup. The goes for Windows updates. If there is an update event I run Casper after a day or so to make sure there are no issues. I have booted from my back on several occasions for testing or out of necessity. all was well. My process is the same with Windows 7 backup!

As far as the encryption idea, I'm going to do more research and then make a special folder to do a test encryption to see how it goes.

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Terry

It just goes to show you, it's always something. If it's not one thing it's another!
_Rosanne Rosannadanna

A couple of points. Steve Winograd who used to be an Admin here, was an MVP for several years, and who ran a computer repair business similar to mine, recommended Casper and used it with many clients. I trust his judgment.

Second, you can screw up any backup program or imaging program if you try hard enough - and sometimes it is even easy.

The only program I ever found that works consistently for imaging is Windows System Imaging, and for Backup, Windows Backup. Sorry, I spent years trying all sorts of programs and only Microsoft was continually reliable. Can you screw up Microsoft? I'm sure someone could. Nothing's perfect.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

Terry, of course it is your system and you have every right to do as you wish. Still there is a question that has been asked at least twice without answer. What reason do you have to want to take this risk to your system?

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