Add Encrypt / Decrypt to Right Click Menu

Windows Vista contains a built in encryption function that can be used to 'lock' specified files or directories so that only your specific user account can access them. This is not password based, but account based, so that unless you are logged in with your specific username and password, the file is inaccessible. It's kind of tricky and time consuming to get at the encryption option in the default Vista interface though. To make access to encryption easy, put it on the context menu with this little registry addition.

Note: It's always good to be careful with encryption, because it is quite possible to lose access to important files completely. For a solid grounding in the topic as it relates to recent versions of Windows.

To add encrypt/decrypt command to the right-click context menu:

Open Regedit (open 'start' menu and type 'regedit.')

Navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced'

Create a new DWORD value named 'EncryptionContextMenu' and give it a value of 1.