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Discover two ways to disable EFS

When Windows XP is configured in workgroup environments, by default it doesn't use Recovery Agent.

Therefore, disabling EFS in Windows XP is handled differently than in Windows 2000. There are two ways to disable EFS, depending on the configuration.

If your computer is joined to a domain, you can disable EFS through Group Policy:

1. Open the Group Policy at the level you want to disable EFS.
2. Go to Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings.
3. Expand the Public Key Policies.
4. Right-click the Encrypting File System and click Properties.
5. Remove the check from Allow Users To Encrypt Files Using Encrypting File
   Systems (EFS).
6. Exit the console.

If your computer is not joined to a domain, this Group Policy setting has no effect. Instead, you'll need to manually change the registry. (As always, we'll remind you that registry editing can be risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before you begin.)

1. Open the registry editor (Regedit.exe).
2. Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\
   EFS key.
3. Choose Edit / New. Click the DWORD value.
4. Type EfsConfiguration as the name.
5. Double-click the new value and change its value to 1.
6. Restart the computer.

Note: EFS is available on Windows XP Professional computers that have only NTFS, not FAT32, partitions. EFS is not available in Windows XP Home Edition.