Technology @lemmy.ml dvdnet62 @feddit.nl 5mo ago

Windows 11 24H2 will enable BitLocker encryption for everyone — happens on both clean installs and reinstalls

www.tomshardware.com Windows 11 24H2 will enable BitLocker encryption for everyone — happens on both clean installs and reinstalls

You can still manually disable encryption if desired.

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It's not a completely bad thing but ehh there are serious disadvantages, especially for gamers. I'm just glad I use Linux and will keep the change in mind in case I need to reinstall Windows on my gaming rig.

Btw TL;DR of the article is:

Windows 11 will automatically enable BitLocker on clean installs and re-installs.

OEMs will be able to enable it even on Windows 11 Home with a special UEFI flag (whatever that means).

BitLocker is a full-disk encryption technology by Microsoft. It provides better security since the data on the drive cannot be read without decrypting it (especially useful if someone steals the device) but the data cannot be recovered in case of forgetting the password or system malfunctions. Also it greatly decreases performance of the drive (by up to 45% on SSDs). This makes it unsuitable for many computer users.

The feature cannot be disabled by native means. If you want to disable it, use Rufus and select the appropriate flag when creating the bootable USB.
- The question is will this encrypt other partition that have other OS such as Linux automatically especially for dual boot users?
  
  Knowing Microsoft's behavior for many years, it might. If I had a dual-boot, I'd make sure I have a backup of all the important data on a separate device
  
  Bitlocker is a feature that relies on NTFS
  
  Unless you've somehow been working with cthulhu and installed Linux on an NTFS partition, you're probably golden
- by up to 45% on SSDs
  
  Excuse me, what!?!
  
  I wonder where the average is for the performance reduction. Probably something I'll look into but I'd be pissed if I bought a drive and instantly lost even 20%.
  
  Luckily, I'm not on Windows so I have nothing to really worry about but damn.
- Since most people sign into Windows with their Microsoft account, does that mean that MS holds the decryption keys for your local hard drive?
  
  If you configure it to backup your keys to your account, yes.
  
  This (at least used to be) an opt in configuration option
  
  Idk. I just made a TL;DR. I'm not a Windows expert by any means. There's no point for me in studying it cuz I only use it for gaming and don't even consider it as my main OS

47 comments