Is it possible to recover encrypted files/folders? - windows

I've found some remnant documents on one of my hard drives that were somehow encrypted (appearing green in Windows 7 Ultimate x64).
I've attempted to uncheck Encryption in their properties, but I get access denied. I've figured this to be because the files were from a previous format/iteration of my desktop setup, and must have somehow inadvertently gotten encrypted. (I now believe it had something to do with transferring them at one point onto a Mac machine/drive, and then back, not realizing that they were encrypted until post-format).
I originally posted in this question that I thought I had a VMware image from the same time period as the files, and that perhaps it'd be possible to transfer the key from that image to my current machine, but that image is not the right one! :/ I don't have an image that goes back further.
I've tried copying the files to a FAT32 USB drive (as it would strip the encryption), but Windows 7 denies that (understandably). And as expected, trying to drag/copy the files from my current machine onto the VMware running machine also gets denied, as VMware is running within Win7's domain and rules.
Any ideas? What about booting my current machine off of a linux live USB stick, and then attempting to copy the NTFS encrypted files onto a FAT32 partition (thus removing the encryption) -- Would that work, seeing as how Windows wouldn't be "awake" to prohibit copying?

I found a zip archive where these files originated from. Whenever I extracted them, however, they'd appear green. Sure enough, there's also a MACOSX folder in the zip file (no idea why Windows decides to encrypt anything that's coming from a Mac).
I was able to copy the zip file onto the old VMware image of mine and extract the zip file there. It still came up as encrypted, but right clicking the folder, clicking properties, and unchecking Encryption fully decrypted the folder and files!
I'd assume that even though this VMware image's machine name was different from the user record within the file's encryption information, it likely was actually the same, originating machine and subsequent encryption certificates.
Anyway, I was able to copy the decrypted files back, and now the problem's solved!

Related

How can I prevent Windows from caching thumbnails and other metadata for particular folders or drives?

I know I can disable thumbnail caching system wide, but that seems too dramatic, I do enjoy the performance benefits of caching, just not for particular directories or drives. For example I sometimes mount my smartphone, and don't want Windows to keep any record of files it saw on there. Sometimes I mount an encrypted volume (using Veracrypt). Sometimes I scan my passport and delete the image file from my pc but don't want a thumbnail lingering somewhere. Clearing the cache afterwards for each of these cases is too much of a nuisance, I rather just prevent it from being created for certain directories or drives.
For the record, I have already encrypted the whole system with Veracrypt, but just want to also prevent caching so that even when my system is unlocked it doesn't reveal anything about previously deleted files or previously mounted volumes. (I also already use Eraser to secure delete files and wipe their records from the Master File Table, but that's off topic).

Where to store a temporary copy of a network file in Windows - INetCache?

I would like to create a temporary copy of a network file while actively working on it in our application which is a Windows desktop application. I am concerned about folder-redirection and potentially Citrix as some of our users employ these.
After some analysis of Microsoft Word, I have discovered that it writes its local cache of a network file into %AppData%\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.MSO (in Windows 10).
I have read this former post Internet Explorer Cache Location that says to check the registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Cache
to be sure of where temporary internet files are stored on the local machine.
I would anticipate creating a subfolder of the "temporary internet files" folder named essentially Content.MyApplicationName, as Microsoft appears to do.
So my question is whether this is indeed the best place to store a local cache of a network file while working on it, allowing for the possibility that folder-redirection could have been employed on the machine.

Virtual Box Shared folders on Mac backup to external harddrive

So I found out how to share folders using Virtual Box and running Windows 8.
I was wondering, if I save files or projects from Windows 8 to the shared folder on my Mac, will TimeMachine backup those files onto my external harddrive? The hard drive is of course formatted for Mac because of that whole debockel, but that is besides the point. Even though the files were made in Windows.
Also...My assumption is that I would not be able to access the files on my external formatted hard drive from Virtual Box running Windows 8. Is this true?
To my knowledge, you cannot access the files on a journaled formatted hard drive from Windows without extra software. If I understand you correctly, you are trying to backup files created in the Windows VM within your Time Machine backup hard drive?
I'm sure you have solved this by now, but you should consider backing up the VM itself. If the files on the Windows Machine are important you can leave them in a shared folder and have time machine back up that folder.

Copying files, while preserving ALL attributes

I'm trying to write a restore script for an embedded PC running Windows XP, the idea is, to plug in an restore USB flash drive, boot it and copy an image from the flash drive to the PC. That's working fine so far. However each embedded PC has an individual license file, which needs to be preserved.
I'm trying to copy these files to flash drive, restore the image and copy them back to the PC.
If I copy them using Windows Explorer, they are are ok.
If I copy them using command lines "copy" or "xcopy" they break. The also break when I use C# and File.Copy, so I guess there are some attributes which are not covered.
Any ideas how to copy these files without the need to log in (they usally don't have any kind of display or keyboard)?
Note that the license files are bound to hardware id, i'm not trying to pirate anything.

Mac OSX mounted network drive name changes

I'm working on a cocoa app that copies files to a user defined folder, and I'm currently testing it with a network drive. When I get the location of the network drive from the standard cocoa file browser, it looks like "/Volumes/Media". This works fine usually. There seems to be an issue though that I can't quite seem to work out where when I disconnect from my WIFI network, the Media drive remains mounted (I see it in /Volumes) but it is not accessible. Then when I reconnect the network, the drive is mounted to /Volumes/Media-1. I still see the original unusable /Volumes/Media drive until I restart my computer.
My question is a two parter. First, does anyone have any ideas why my drive may be staying "mounted" in my /Volumes folder even though I'm disconnected from the network. And secondly, I noticed that iTunes doesn't seem to be phased by this change of Volume name (from Media to Media-1). It is able to notice that the content it was originally accessing on /Volumes/Media, is now on /Volumes/Media-1 and continues functioning without a hitch. How might I go about detecting that name change and updating the path that I have stored in my app?
I'm trying this on OSX Lion by the way.
I asked the same question on Ask Different :
How to prevent the “-1” suffix in network drive paths?

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