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Many people willing to pay for file encryption programs but did you know Windows XP, Vista, and Seven have built in file encryption capabilities? File encryption is more and more important as our data is the coming more mobile by the day. If you were to Lucia laptop, a password may protect your information but if the person who finds your laptop takes out your hard drive and put it into a now the computer all install is a different operating system on your hard drive, they may still have access to your files. In this guide, you will learn how to encrypt your files in Windows XP. See this guide for Vista/Seven .

Encrypt Your Files

To encrypt your files, do the following:

1. Right-click the file folder you wish to encrypt and select Properties

   

2. On the Properties dialog, click Advanced…

   

3. Check Encrypt contents to secure data and click OK

   

4. If you are encrypting a folder, you will be asked if you want to apply the encryption to subfolders. This is useful if you want to protect the whole tree under the folder you are encrypting

   

5. Notice the file or folder writing is now green– this provides an easy way to show the data is encrypted

   

Decrypt Your Files

If you want to decrypt your files or folders so they can be accessed on a different computer, simply follow the steps above and uncheck Encrypt contents to secure data.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

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