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Copying EFS protected files

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Nov 11, 2010
6
US
Hello all,

Hoping for some insight here. I'm labbing recovery scenarios and was looking in particular at EFS. I've encrypted a file on a Vista client that is joined to a domain. I am wondering if there is a way to recover the file if a) you don't have a backup and b) can't access Windows on the client.

Since this machine is joined to a domain, I know I can use the private key of the Administrator profile on my first DC to decrypt the files. I am kinda stuck at actually getting the files to the DC in the first place.

It appears that I cannot even use a Linux LiveCD to copy the files. I tried Ubuntu and Puppy Linux and they both give permission denied errors when I try to copy the file.

Out of curiosity I also tried copying the files from the client using Windows explorer on my DC (\\machinename\c$) and it didn't seem to like that either. I thought maybe robocopy would work with the /efsraw switch but I get a "File could not be encrypted." when it tries to copy. So if someone knows why that doesn't work either I would really like to understand.
 
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