copied Windows XP account documents denied access in Windows 7

U

unfortunateson

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 17, 2004
Messages
188
Before installing Windows 7, I copied my entire User's Documents directory to another drive. I erase XP and install 7, now all the files in the copied directory are encrypted and impossible to access (they are colored green). I've tried nearly everything I could think of from changing permissions, ownership, even registry hacks, all to no avail. I've done many googlings and found various pages like this:

http://windowsitpro.com/article/art...denied-when-you-attempt-to-open-a-folder.html

But they don't work in this situation. Any suggestions?
 
Do you have a copy of the encryption key? Windows would have asked you to make a backup of the key when you first tried to access an encrypted file.
 
The Windows XP account was not private, Windows 7 just says access denied, that I don't have permission to access the files, nothing about keys.
 
Nothing works with permissions, so I'm leading to that conclusion myself, although I've never encrypted anything before, but can't rule out the possibility of someone else using the account that MAY have.

In that case, I'd be SOL, so I am hoping that's not the case, that it could be another problem/answer.
 
Try booting with a Linux Live CD. Linux ignores Windows' permissions, so if the files are readable, Linux will open them. If Linux can't open them, then they're encrypted, in which case you'll need your original encryption key.
 
If the files are showing up green, they ARE encrypted. You should have been able to override permissions in Windows 7 but you have nothing to loose so you could try reb00tin's idea.
 
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