Windows 11 encrypted my drive automatically

Dru2 · Oct 9, 2021

Try3 said:
Treat anything in that article with suspicion. Its author has been known to publish deliberately-fabricated information.

Best of luck,
Denis

Where is it established that the author "deliberately" published fabricated info?

Try3 · Oct 10, 2021

Dru2 said:
Where is it established that the author "deliberately" published fabricated info?

In
Dell Power Companion PW7015L review - PCWorld
the test results were fabricated. The difference between the published results & the real situation was far more than could be explained by experimental error.

In those fabricated test results, the author [Gordon Ung] claimed that an XPS [which lasted 312 mins on its own 56WHr battery] lasted 1364 mins when the Dell Powerbank PW7015L was connected.
- That ratio indicated that the Dell Powerbank PW7015L capacity was 189WHr.
- The Dell Powerbank PW7015L capacity is actually 65WHr.
- So the battery duration test results ought to have been around 674 mins not 1364 mins.

I believed those fabricated battery duration test results so I bought one. I can never trust Gordon Ung or PCWorld again.

All the best,
Denis

Dru2 · Oct 10, 2021

I don't really see that as fabricated; more like this is what we got based on xyz settings; but OK.

BTW, I never believe any battery life results because I know there are far too many variables that can affect it. That's me.

Try3 · Oct 10, 2021

Dru2 said:
I don't really see that as fabricated; more like this is what we got based on xyz settings; but OK.

BTW, I never believe any battery life results because I know there are far too many variables that can affect it. That's me.

But the point was that they did not get those results.
They could not have got those results.
They could not have got that comparison between the XPS on its own & the XPS with the powerbank unless they had waved a magic wand over it to magic up an extra 124WHr out of thin air.

All the best,
Denis

tinmar49 · Oct 11, 2021

When I upgraded W10 to W11, I already had bitlocker enabled, so I cannot figure out what happened to you. Fortunately, it is easy to turn off BL and it will de encrypt the drive/s. When I succeeded in doing a clean install on the same machine to change my C drive, I had BL turned off and with advice, I have left it off at least for now, and so far it has stayed off and updates are not affected.

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

I didn't even know what Bitlocker was until I upgraded to Macrium Reflect 8 yesterday and my laptop refused to boot. A few hours searching on another machine and I found out that all my partitions were locked. My Microsoft account gave me the unlock codes but there was no way to permanently unlock as I have Windows 11 Home edition which does not support Bitlocker so lacked the unlock tools, so I had to reinput three 48 digit codes after every reboot. In the end, more by luck than judgement, I got it working by uninstalling Reflect 8 and reinstalling Reflect 7, imaged all the partitions and Reflect disabled the locks on restore.

Everything now seems back to where it was before Reflect 8 somehow enabled Bitlocker, but for a time it looked as though I'd have to format the partitions and start again. A day wasted on something that by all accounts couldn't happen because Windows Home doesn't support Bitlocker.

Fabler2 · Oct 12, 2021

tonyw said:
I didn't even know what Bitlocker was until I upgraded to Macrium Reflect 8 yesterday and my laptop refused to boot. A few hours searching on another machine and I found out that all my partitions were locked. My Microsoft account gave me the unlock codes but there was no way to permanently unlock as I have Windows 11 Home edition which does not support Bitlocker so lacked the unlock tools, so I had to reinput three 48 digit codes after every reboot. In the end, more by luck than judgement, I got it working by uninstalling Reflect 8 and reinstalling Reflect 7, imaged all the partitions and Reflect disabled the locks on restore.

Everything now seems back to where it was before Reflect 8 somehow enabled Bitlocker, but for a time it looked as though I'd have to format the partitions and start again. A day wasted on something that by all accounts couldn't happen because Windows Home doesn't support Bitlocker.

It would be Drive Encryption on Windows Home.

Turn On or Off Device Encryption in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off device encryption on a Windows 11 PC. Device encryption (aka: BitLocker automatic device encryption) helps protect your data on the OS drive, and it's available on a wide range of Windows devices. If you turn on device encryption, the OS drive...

www.elevenforum.com

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

Fabler2 said:
It would be Drive Encryption on Windows Home.

Turn On or Off Device Encryption in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off device encryption on a Windows 11 PC. Device encryption (aka: BitLocker automatic device encryption) helps protect your data on the OS drive, and it's available on a wide range of Windows devices. If you turn on device encryption, the OS drive...

www.elevenforum.com

I agree it shouldn't have been, but this was definitely Bitlocker. The drives would only unlock when the Bitlocker Recovery key (found in my Microsoft account) to match the displayed Key Id was inputted.

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

Does anyone know if it's possible to permanently remove Bitlocker from my Microsoft account in such a way that it can not be enabled under any circumstances?

jvickers · Oct 12, 2021

When I upgraded in the Dev channel months ago, my drive never encrypted. I just reset my system and reinstalled the Windows 11 upgrade (long story). The drive remained unencrypted.

XXLMandalorian · Oct 12, 2021

Wish people would say the type of acct they have and OS info when posting about Bitlocker.

Ghot said:
Might want to read this...

Mandatory Microsoft accounts for Windows 11 Home might be a good thing

Im a little confused so will there be no way to make a local acct now and all accts will be some sort of MS acct?

Had my run with BitLocker on a SurfaceBook 3 win10 Pro 1909. We always add a local admin acct on all PCs and for mobile user have a workgroup acct made. Got locked out when it armed itself when trying to make Bios changed... Wish I saved the email from MS but long story short SurfaceBook 3 for sure and other Pros/Books arm itself by default. So, after that I just enable on all our Pros/Books and have the keys saved in 3 separate places. Thank goodness I had a local file backup to get the users files back.

With our new policies at work, we need all mobile folks to have this enabled any way. If you have your keys physical and digitally it's not a big deal as the rule of three should be second nature anyway.

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

XXLMandalorian said:
Wish people would say the type of acct they have and OS info when posting about Bitlocker.

Im a little confused so will there be no way to make a local acct now and all accts will be some sort of MS acct now?

Had my run with BitLocker on a SurfaceBook 3 win10 Pro 1909. We always add a local admin acct on all PCs and for mobile user have a workgroup acct made. Got locked out when it armed itself when trying to make Bios changed... Wish I saved the email from MS but long story short SurfaceBook 3 for sure and other Pros/Books arm itself by default. So, after that I just enable on all our Pros/Books and have the keys saved in 3 separate places. Thank goodness I had a local file backup to get the users files back.

With our new policies at work, we need all mobile folks to have this enabled any way. If you have your keys physical and digitally it's not a big deal as the rule of three should be second nature anyway.

I have my Windows 11 Home set up as a local account. Microsoft keeps nagging me to set it up as a Microsoft account so they can synch it with my other devices. The thing is, I don't want it synched, I want all of my devices to be stand alone and not sharing my information between them, and I most certainly do not want Microsoft to lock my drives, for my own good. I hate being nannied.

ThrashZone · Oct 12, 2021

tonyw said:
I agree it shouldn't have been, but this was definitely Bitlocker. The drives would only unlock when the Bitlocker Recovery key (found in my Microsoft account) to match the displayed Key Id was inputted.

Hi,
Tutorial as is it's just basic settings changes not very concrete
Need group policy plus registry change so ms doesn't undo settings which they do all the time in 10

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Tutorial as is it's just basic settings changes not very concrete
Need group policy plus registry change so ms doesn't undo settings which they do all the time in 10

Group policy editor seemingly not available in Home edition.

ThrashZone · Oct 12, 2021

tonyw said:
Group policy editor seemingly not available in Home edition.

Hi,
Home isn't supported
But regedit could be used if there was one.

XXLMandalorian · Oct 12, 2021

tonyw said:
Group policy editor seemingly not available in Home edition.

I know you can enable GPO in Win 10 home with some leg work. With some digging and a backup, it looks like you can in 11 Home now as well.

Try3 · Oct 12, 2021

XXLMandalorian said:
I know you can enable GPO in Win 10 home with some leg work.

Group Policy Editor on Home is just a viewer [Brink #3] - TenForums

Isn't that still the case then?

Denis

XXLMandalorian · Oct 12, 2021

Try3 said:
Group Policy Editor on Home is just a viewer [Brink #3] - TenForums

Isn't that still the case then?

Denis

Right, but dont you need to do both for it to take?

tonyw · Oct 12, 2021

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Home isn't supported
But regedit could be used if there was one.

I have regedit, but don't know what to look for. Any advice would be gratefully accepted. I also found "Bitlocker drive encryption service" in services which was active, I disabled it but it made no difference to the partitions locking every time the machine booted, it took an image restore for each partition to stop that nonsense.

My drive is a 1TB SSD, divided into three working partitions which Bitlocker had locked separately.

CP/M was never this much trouble.

Try3 · Oct 12, 2021

XXLMandalorian said:
Right, but dont you need to do both for it to take?

I don't know what "both" you are referring to but Brink's point [born out by several TenForums threads] is that GPEdit on Home cannot change any settings or Registry entries. It is just a viewer.

All the best,
Denis