Recover encrypted files on upgraded system ?

I recently did a quasi-clean install of XP on my Win2K notebook. I actually installed it in the existing Win2K partition, after using the recovery console beforehand to rename the 2K system directories to avoid conflicts.

Everything worked well, and I was able to move over my data files from my old 2K "My Documents" folder to my new XP one.

One hitch I've run into, though, is that one of the directories I had stored was apparently encrypted under 2K. I say "apparently" because I don't remember encrypting it. This was a directory of files I synch with my work PC, some of them date back to when my desktop was Win2K, and then transferred to an XP machine on our corp domain, and then once again to an upgraded machine. At one point I had to use a spare XP desktop unattached to the domain or a small NT server to bridge the files for snychronization between my domain-connected XP desktop and stand alone 2K notebook. In some cases they were straight copies to/from shares, in other cases they were true synchronizations. Complicating things further, I had to create a dummy local account on my XP desktop for my notebook to use for accessing the shared directory that I sink. I hesitate to think of the abuse the permission settings have taken moving between all those systems... I think I had them encrypted on my desktop under Win2K and then under XP, but I never bothered with encryption after that because MS said that I couldn't encrypt synchronized offline files locally on my notebook.

At any rate, I can no longer access those files on my notebook under XP and there are some older ones I need access to. I've taken ownership of all the files, and granted myself full access. I just can't open them.

I haven't wiped out my old Win2K directories yet, so I've still got access to my old OS system files. Is there any way of recovering the cert that would have encrypted them under 2K? Worst case scenario, I can boot back into Win2K, but that would involve some fancy footwork in the recovery console to restore the original directories and rename the XP ones. I'd prefer not to do that if possible. I consider myself lucky enough to have gotten XP installed smoothly alongside 2K, I don't want to push that luck...

I'm also wondering if moving them back to my XP desktop might decrypt them, since that's where many of them originated? I consider myself tech savy, but NTFS permissions and domains always give me a headache and accompanying grief (mostly brought on by myself because I try and find ways to work around the system). I'm not even entirely sure which of my various accounts originated the encryption...

Any thoughts or ideas appreciated !

Cheers,
KV
:confused:

I wouldn't move them, I tried that once and I never was able to recover them, it made things ten times worse :(

If you can find the Recovery Agent Certificate, it should work just as well in WinXP as in Win2000 as far as I know, the only thing that changed between W2K and XP is that in XP it isn't created by default. But without the RA cert, you're pretty much snookered.

Thanks for the advice SuperSparks, I agree, my XP has been running smoothly enough that I don't want to risk temporarily going back to 2K at this point.

I've been out of the office this week, but when I'm in next week I'm going to try moving them to my original work PC to see if that somehow recovers the encryption, I've got nothing to lose. When that doesn't work, I'll just consider it a lost cause. It will probably take less time to re-create the files as I need them than to repair the damage I'll cause trying to fix this...! :D

Cheers,
KV