this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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    Back in January Microsoft encrypted all my hard drives without saying anything. I was playing around with a dual boot yesterday and somehow aggravated Secureboot. So my C: panicked and required a 40 character key to unlock.

    Your key is backed up to the Microsoft account associated with your install. Which is considerate to the hackers. (and saved me from a re-install) But if you've got an unactivated copy, local account, or don't know your M$ account credentials, your boned.

    Control Panel > System Security > Bitlocker Encryption.

    BTW, I was aware that M$ was doing this and even made fun of the effected users. Karma.

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    [–] [email protected] 231 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    They also do spyware. They just renamed it "AI."

    [–] [email protected] 94 points 2 months ago (4 children)
    [–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Rectal is what it's called I believe?

    Microsoft Rectal

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    [–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Did they change it from "telemetry" to AI now?

    [–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)
    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

    Unless the "telemetry" has been removed, shouldnt there be "added extra" instead of "renamed"?

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    [–] [email protected] 163 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Holy shit, they automatically activate it on computers without an account to back the key up to?

    That's just malicious

    [–] [email protected] 103 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    IIRC, they only do this if you're logged in with a Microsoft account.

    Bitlocker is disabled by default if you only use local accounts

    [–] [email protected] 47 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I've occasionally seen it activate itself on computers with only a local account, though I've so far only seen it when upgrading in place to 11 with secure boot enabled in the BIOS, and not every time. Fortunately the one time it locked me out was on a freshly cloned drive, so it only cost me redoing the work.

    Also, the number of people who I've seen lose all their data because they don't even know they created an MS account during OOBE, and later had a boot or BIOS hiccup, is too damn high!

    [–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

    I have (had ;'( ) a local account, and bitlocker was activated. I only found out when my motherboard bit the dust, and that triggered the no-TPM bitlocker thingamajig. Goodbye data.

    Of course it hits right as I needed the data on that laptop. Fucking murphy and his fancy legal words.

    If anyone is in a situation like mine, you might find luck with a little DIY hacking: https://www.techspot.com/news/106166-old-bitlocker-vulnerability-exploited-bypass-encryption-updated-windows.html

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    [–] [email protected] 139 points 2 months ago (6 children)
    [–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

    πŸ€” shit... you right

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    [–] [email protected] 102 points 2 months ago (31 children)

    They desperately wanted to eliminate personal computers and replace them with dumb terminals running over the net.

    When the public rejected this idea

    THIS is their response. They are still insisting on total control of our computers.

    [–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago (19 children)

    They desperately wanted to eliminate personal computers and replace them with dumb terminals running over the net.

    I don't know about that.

    Dumb terminal concept was more what Chromebook was doing.

    Microsoft is doing something even stupider.

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    [–] [email protected] 80 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    Just checked my wife's laptop. Local account, secure boot off, windows 10. It had a message telling me to setup a microsoft account to 'finish encrypting the device'. I clicked turn off, and it's currently decrypting the hard drive. Blech.

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    [–] [email protected] 60 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    Meanwhile in Linux with luls, which I've had since a pre-pre-pre version somewhere back in the early 2000's, I can have multiple keys, all works like sunshine, never had problems.

    On windows... So we work with highly sensitive data, and ever since I came in I thought it insane that people working remote don't have that highly sensitive data encrypted. We can't switch Linux yet, so okay, we go for BitLocker.

    Boy oh boy oh boy was that a mistake.

    50 remote users, 5 get encrypted devices with BitLocker as a trial and within a month, 3 of them already got locked up permanently because apparently it'll pwrma lock itself after x amounts of invalid passwords which is just incredibly stupid. But don't worry, there is a backup key! Yeah, that is lie 48 characters that we'd had to pass by phone and they have to type it flawlessly.

    Suffice to say, the remote users will be running Linux soon, like it or not.

    [–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Yeah, that is lie 48 characters that we'd had to pass by phone and they have to type it flawlessly.

    Wouldn't be so bad if everyone knew their Alpha Bravo Charlies

    My one talent: alpha bravo charlie delta echo foxtrot golf hotel India Juliet kilo Lima mike November Oscar papa Quebec Romeo Sierra tango uniform Victor whiskey x-ray Yankee Zulu, typed using voice to text

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    [–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

    Not that it helps now, but you can also dump your bitlocker recovery key through powershell and save it independently.

    (Get-BitLockerVolume -MountPoint "C").KeyProtector

    [–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    The control panel dialogue allows you to do this as well. Control Panel > system security > Bitlocker encryption. But it also has the superior option which is to turn it off.

    I didn't loose any data BTW. I had my M$ account info, and a backup besides.

    [–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (13 children)

    But it also has the superior option which is to turn it off.

    Why would you not want to encrypt your files? My Linux systems are encrypted too.

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    [–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago
    [–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

    This happened to me once and I had to redo my coursework over the weekend...now I use Fedora :D

    [–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I just installed Manjaro on my daily driver over the weekend. My entire steam library just works. My dev tools all work(better) on Linux, and free office is nice and familiar. Fuck widows.

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

    Give them time to mourn first, but then fuck widows :D

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    [–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

    I've actually had this occur before to a machine I specifically disabled the tpm on so that it wouldn't happen (it was an account less frozen kiosk). I was fuming the entire time I spent rebuilding it.

    [–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago

    Windows is the virus.

    [–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Thank you for the word of warning. Does this affect Windows 10 as well?

    [–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Does this affect Windows 10 as well

    IDK. 10 has bitlocker, so I'd check.

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    [–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Why cant windows copy luks and let you choose your own password

    [–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    because people will set hunter2 and be done with it.

    [–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    How did you get my password?

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    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Fuck Microsoft.

    I remember back in highschool a buddy encrypted his harddrive, didn't backup his key. He Lost ALOT when I upgraded his comp

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    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Bit late to this thread but I know a few commands that might help if you're stuck:

    manage-bde -off C: (or any other drive) This decrypts the volume and turns off bitlocker

    manage-bde -lock/unlock

    manage-bde -protectors -get C: (or any other drive) This displays your 48-digit key. I suggest you store it somewhere, just to be safe.

    Get-BitlockerVolume reveals which of your partitions are encrypted with Bitlocker.

    Disclaimer: I am not a terminal nerd, I just had similar problems years ago and went down the rabbit hole, used these commands and turned off bitlocker permanently. I don't use windows anymore, but when I did, it didn't cause any problems with bitlocker after this. If you're concerned about your un-encrypted hard drives, consider using Veracrypt (carefully!) or similar open source encryption software.

    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    I can't even adjust bitlocker settings on my laptop's windows 11 home Installation...

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    [–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Always have backups! Doesnt matter what OS you use, stuff will break eventually.

    I prefer bootable full system images to my NAS for easy restores, and online file backups, both running daily.

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    [–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

    This has been happening to people randomly for years. Ysed to get calls about it all the time, and that was pre-covid

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Windows is still around?????

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    [–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    You know, this is actually one Windows decision I agree with. Encryption should be default, especially on portable devices like laptops. For an OS aimed at people who want to use their computers, rather than understand them, you have to choose an encryption that works by default for most of your non-tech-savvy users.

    If they want their data truly in their own hands, or full control, use Linux.

    If they want to use Windows, but not rely on a Microsoft account for recovery, get the bitlocker recovery key and write it down (which you can do).

    But I think this looks like a sane default.

    (Full disclosure, I don't use Windows for anything I care about!)

    [–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

    Would be fine. The problem is, Microsoft is encrypting drives and not telling anybody about it. Average users have no clue what any of this is and are completely unaware they need to create a passphrase for safe keeping.

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    [–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (16 children)

    Respectfully, hard disagree and terrible take. I work in IT, and your stance only makes sense if people have some tech knowledge. Which is never going to happen for the average person.

    I can't tell you how many older people I've had to tell that I can't save their grandkids first pics because of bitlocker

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