Is there a way to prevent Windows from activating BitLocker automatically?

compiler · Apr 8, 2022

WOW... and HOLY EXCREMENT!! i JUST GOT my new DELL Inspiron. I had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER.I typed ENCRYPTION in the search box. It took me there and it was indeed turned on. I turned it off. It took 10 minutes to decrypt. I hope that's it

Mel

ShamrockRig · Apr 8, 2022

fdisker said:
In my case I recently purchased a new Lenovo IdeaPad laptop that came with Win11. I've had the laptop for about a week and I've done quite a few Win11 clean installs because I like to tinker. Anyhow, to answer your question, if i DISABLE SECURE BOOT in the bios Win11 will not encrypt the drive after a clean install. If I ENABLE SECURE BOOT in the bios Win11 will encrypt the drive after a clean install every time.

I've ran CRYSTAL DISKMARK with encryption ENABLED and DISABLED and there is no performance hit. If you have a modern system I'd recommend letting Win11 encrypt the drive so that your data is protected.

My opinions are mine and mine alone. Take it for what it's worth.

Really? Thats mad, I done a clean install again maybe a month ago now and it didn't turn mine on or anything lol. Have secure boot and TPM turned on too.

stevj · Apr 8, 2022

Once you have decrypted your drive, can't you then disable the Bitlocker Drive Encryption Service?

fdisker · Apr 9, 2022

My experience has been that once the drive is encrypted you can go into Settings -> Privacy & security -> Drive encryption and turn it off. Only took a few minutes to decrypt and it will stay that way until you turn the feature back on. It's trivial to flip back and forth between the two states.

TairikuOkami · Apr 9, 2022

stevj said:
Once you have decrypted your drive, can't you then disable the Bitlocker Drive Encryption Service?

I use this to disable both bitlocker and efs.

Code:

reg add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\BitLocker" /v "PreventDeviceEncryption" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
fsutil behavior set disableencryption 1
cipher /d /s:C:\

sc config BDESVC start= disabled
sc config EFS start= disabled