Disable EFS service

[Johnny Q]

How can I disable the EFS service?

 

[gregrocker]

"Provides the core file encryption technology used to store encrypted files on NTFS file system volumes. If this service is stopped or disabled, applications will be unable to access encrypted files."

Why turn it off? It is set to manual and won't run unless needed.

Otherwise, it's in the Services with all the others.

This isn't like Vista. Most services are set on fast triggers and don't hang around it they're not being used.

 

[Johnny Q]

This is not a perf issue. I was asking how exactly (the steps) can I stop it?

 

[Brink]

Hello Johnny Q,

This tutorial below will show you how to disable that service, but as Greg posted above, there's no need to since it is set as "Manual" by default and poses no security risk or performance loss set this way.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2495-services-start-disable.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Johnny Q]

When this service is started (don't know exactly by whom, since I do not use encryption) it cannot be stopped - the options to stop it are greyed out. Is this the normal behaviour or is it something wrong with my system? I've noticed this with several other services as well.

 

[Brink]

Johnny,

You may be able to set it has "Disabled" with it still as "Started" first, restart the computer, then set is as "Stopped" and "Manual".

 

[Johnny Q]

Thanks. Still find it weird, though.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Johnny.

Yeah, these stubborn services require this work around sometimes.

 

[BradOZ]

I never even heard of EFS until it randomly started poping up saying I should backup certificates. As I'd never seen this before I immediately end tasked it thinking it was some malware scam app that has got in somehow. This computer has been disconnected from the net for some time and recently installed all the Win7 updates and then installed Visual Studio 2015. Now my VS project that was working on my laptop can not access any of its own files. Saving changes to the file attempts to save it as a new one. I dont need EFS or have the time to deal with issues it may cause for me. Especially when Im trying to do a c programming assignment for uni. Has some windows 7 update just decided I want file encryption? I can disable EFS service but before I do how do I make sure I will have acess to all my files and If so how do EFS wont come back again?

 

[Brink]

Hello Brad, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Before disabling the EFS service, double check using the tutorial below to make sure that you don't have any files encrypted by EFS.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/161226-encrypted-files-find-all-local-hard-drives.html

If you do, then decrypt them all first.

Encrypt or Decrypt a Folder or File