Hi, I suggest you contact DigitalPersona software support for its encryption method since we're not familiar with it. For EFS, I'd like to share this with you: How EFS works Hope it helps. Regards, MiyaThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, I suggest you contact DigitalPersona software support for its encryption method since we're not familiar with it. For EFS, I'd like to share this with you: How EFS works Hope it helps. Regards, MiyaThis posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. | Please remember to click "Mark as Answer" on the post that helps you, and to click "Unmark as Answer" if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I'm using a laptop which has a fingerprint reader and DigitalPersona software to allow me to use it to log in without a password. I'm also using encrypted files. If I understand correctly, EFS ultimately uses a key derived from the password to decrypt the file that stores the private key that gives access to my encrypted files. However, if I log on using my fingerprint I don't have to provide a password but I can still access all my encrypted files. How is this achieved? I can imagine the system must be storing either the password itself or the key it provides access to in some file for this case. Does Windows or the fingerprint reader driver encrypt this file using a key derived from the fingerprint? Or could the software in theory be modified (when accessing the disk from a different OS, this will always be possible if physical access is assumed) to bypass the fingerprint check and decrypt the file with some fixed or stored key? In the second case, would uninstalling the fingerprint software be enough to fix the problem or does Windows actually retain the information in some subsystem for biometry? Thanks for any answers.