EFS & built-in Search engine

Hi everybody,

it really looks like as if encrypted files and folders (using the Windows
built-in Encrypting File System - EFS) are not participating to the items
that are searched using the built-in indexing engine. Can anyone please
confirm this? Should this be confirmed, then I will use other crypting
engine...

Best regards,
Marc Ochsenmeier
www.propagating.net

Disclaimer: I have not investigated this issue myself.

What makes you say that it appears that the contents of encrypted files /
folders are not being included in searches conducted in Vista. (Excuse me for
reformulating your question, but I do so to be sure that I am understanding
and properly representing your claim.)

EFS is SUPPOSED to be transparent. That is to say that, if I happen to be
the authorized user (for the EFS-encrypted files) then any operation I
perform on those files should simply happen without any issue. However, if I
log in as a DIFFERENT user than the one who encrypted the files, then their
contents should, indeed, be off limits to me and to my search activities.

"marc ochsenmeier" wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
> it really looks like as if encrypted files and folders (using the Windows
> built-in Encrypting File System - EFS) are not participating to the items
> that are searched using the built-in indexing engine. Can anyone please
> confirm this? Should this be confirmed, then I will use other crypting
> engine...
>
> Best regards,
> Marc Ochsenmeier
> www.propagating.net
>
>

"jimmuh" wrote:

> Disclaimer: I have not investigated this issue myself.
>
> What makes you say that it appears that the contents of encrypted files /
> folders are not being included in searches conducted in Vista. (Excuse me for
> reformulating your question, but I do so to be sure that I am understanding
> and properly representing your claim.)
>
> EFS is SUPPOSED to be transparent. That is to say that, if I happen to be
> the authorized user (for the EFS-encrypted files) then any operation I
> perform on those files should simply happen without any issue. However, if I
> log in as a DIFFERENT user than the one who encrypted the files, then their
> contents should, indeed, be off limits to me and to my search activities.
>
> "marc ochsenmeier" wrote:
>
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > it really looks like as if encrypted files and folders (using the Windows
> > built-in Encrypting File System - EFS) are not participating to the items
> > that are searched using the built-in indexing engine. Can anyone please
> > confirm this? Should this be confirmed, then I will use other crypting
> > engine...
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Marc Ochsenmeier
> > www.propagating.net
> >
> > I got the same issue with RC1: encrypted files using EFS are not indexed at all, although I checked the box "index encrypted files" in the indexing tool menu. The only way to search for a file that is encrypted is to use the advances search feature amd check the box for non indexed, hidden and system files. Another issue that I have now is that after I encrypted the index location, the indexing service does not run anymore. I decrypted that but it wouldn't start again. The problem also is that unlike XP, you cannot enable or disable indexing manually using a windows service; you can only do it when prompted to do so in a search window. So what happens is that now I am prompted to turn indexing back on, but it has no effect.