Change EFS Public Key Policy

[Lloyd_mcse]

If you feel the standard EFS Certificate is not good enough you can change the type and public key size...

RSA Options
2048 Bit SHA1 (Default)
4096 Bit SHA1
8192 Bit SHA1
16384 Bit SHA1

ECC Options
256 SHA256
384 SHA384
521 SHA512

To do this go to...

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy

And browse to

Public Key Policies -> Encrypting File System,

Local Security Policy .png

and right click on the folder "Encrypting File System" and click Properties, which opens this windows...

General-EFS-Properties.png

Change "File Encryption using Encrypting File System (EFS)" from "Not Defined" to "Allow" and change "Elliptic Curve Cryptography" to "Allow". If you want to create a ECC certificate this must be set to "Require".

Now click on the Certificates tab...

Certificates-EFS-Properties-default.png

You should see the above window, here you can select the strength of both RSA and ECC certificates.
Once you have selected what you want click Apply and Ok to close the window.

To create you new certificate follow this guide making sure you update your previously encrypted files so they are encrypted with your new certificate.

Enjoy.