EFS

This article is part of Helge’s Profile Toolkit, a set of posts explaining the knowledge and tools required to tame Windows user profiles. This article presents a collection of tips and tricks around user state migration with and without Microsoft’s USMT. I originally compiled this material for my presentation at the 2010 TechDay Online.

Generally I am not the type to recommend re-implementing functionality present in some API. But with the Windows function CopyFile(Ex) there may be no alternative, because of the less than sub-optimal way Windows copies EFS-encrypted files:

As before this is mainly a condensed and beautified version of my twitter postings. You can get them unfiltered and without delay by following me. Office 2010 Here is a nice overview of the new Office suite by Mark Wilson. By the way: Although available as 32-bit and 64-bit versions, the 32-bit version is the default and recommended by Microsoft for the time being.

This article describes a bug that dramatically reduces file copy performance on Windows systems. I cannot provide a fix (not having access to the Windows source code), but I have found a workaround.

What is the best way to learn PowerShell? Never use cmd.exe again! With PowerShell 2.0 on my Windows 7 machine I decided it finally is time to polish my rusty knowledge of the language dating back to the days when PowerShell was still called Monad. In my attempt to re-familiarize myself with PoSh I consciously use it for tasks that would take me mere seconds with other tools like cmd.exe, or even old friends like Perl. But, hey, learning takes time, and there is nothing better than practice! Here are a couple of things I have learned en route.

In case you have (un?)wittingly been juggling around with multiple EFS certificates like me, you may feel a strong urge to clean up the mess. Which mess? It can happen quite easily that different files are encrypted with different keys. In addition to that, directories that are marked for encryption have EFS certificates associated with them, and there is no UI to manipulate that. In order to straighten this out, once the proper certificate is in place each file and directory needs to be “touched” in order to update their encryption keys.

How can you mess up a simple OS upgrade by using encryption? Simple. Here is what happened to me when I upgraded my Windows 7 beta system to the RC version.