Short question: how would a very low-knowledge user manage to create an encrypted file,
or, about 500+ of them?
Long explanation: I upgraded hardware and downgraded OS on wife's worker's PC (was Win10 now Win7).
Everything the gal does is either on her Desktop or in a Dropbox folder.
Found out Monday she "couldn't do her work" because "my files won't open, they all have the extension .PFILE on them".
She definitely is low-knowledge. So, how could she possibly have figured out how to encrypt an individual file? (It's right-click on file, Properties, Advanced, check box that says Encrypt contents to secure data).
Is there some spam-freeware somewhere that would start a user down that road?
I have to find and decrypt all the files, so that others can use them and so
when I toss the old Win10 box I don't make the files unusable for eternity.
It seems somewhat simple to find the files, using "cipher /u /n" on a CLI.
Time consuming on the Dropbox folder, which (collectively) has some 120,000 files/folders
in it (she's only created a few hundred of those; she hasn't been there long).
I can see how she propagated the problem once she started, as she does a lot
of copy-paste. How did she create file 1, though? It's not something I've
ever seen before.
Decent web page on searching for them, for those who want to know more:
http://mywindowshub.com/how-to-create-li...s-10-8-1-and-7/
And, the cipher command doesn't work until you have at least one encrypted file on your HDD.
or, about 500+ of them?
Long explanation: I upgraded hardware and downgraded OS on wife's worker's PC (was Win10 now Win7).
Everything the gal does is either on her Desktop or in a Dropbox folder.
Found out Monday she "couldn't do her work" because "my files won't open, they all have the extension .PFILE on them".
She definitely is low-knowledge. So, how could she possibly have figured out how to encrypt an individual file? (It's right-click on file, Properties, Advanced, check box that says Encrypt contents to secure data).
Is there some spam-freeware somewhere that would start a user down that road?
I have to find and decrypt all the files, so that others can use them and so
when I toss the old Win10 box I don't make the files unusable for eternity.
It seems somewhat simple to find the files, using "cipher /u /n" on a CLI.
Time consuming on the Dropbox folder, which (collectively) has some 120,000 files/folders
in it (she's only created a few hundred of those; she hasn't been there long).
I can see how she propagated the problem once she started, as she does a lot
of copy-paste. How did she create file 1, though? It's not something I've
ever seen before.
Decent web page on searching for them, for those who want to know more:
http://mywindowshub.com/how-to-create-li...s-10-8-1-and-7/
And, the cipher command doesn't work until you have at least one encrypted file on your HDD.
