[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Richard,

This is integral to how AxCrypt works, so they must be there when you are working on them. They should be cleaned when you exit the application.

You can enable EFS (Encrypting File System) for the folder %localappdata%\AxCrypt if you wish.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Bryan,

Thank you for the report, we’ll be looking into this asap. You can follow progress here: https://bitbucket.org/axcryptab/axcrypt-xwt/issues/168/temporaries-are-not-cleaned .

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Greg,

First of all, ensure that you have not already registered an AxCrypt ID account for the new email.

Then sign in to https://forum.axcrypt.net/ using the old password and the old email, and under settings change y0ur email to the new.

Then you can download and install AxCrypt on the new PC, use the new e-mail and purchase Premium when appropriate.

If you wish to use the new email in the old PC, click “Cancel” at the AxCrypt sign in, then do File | Options | Clear All Settings and Exit.

 

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Bryan,

Simultaneous access of a shared file on a network share is always a little tricky and not something Windows really supports.

With AxCrypt it gets even more so.

When you open an AxCrypt-encrypted file (double-click), what happens is the following:

1) The file is decrypted to a temporary location on your local hard drive.

2) Your local copy of AxCrypt marks the file as “open for editing”, and tries to keep track of when it’s time to re-encrypt it. It lights the red “Broom” (clean up) icon in order to indicate this. AxCrypt cannot successfully keep track of all situations and determine when you’re done with the file, so sometimes you may have to do this manually by clicking the broom icon.

3) AxCrypt launches whatever application Windows thinks is best for the decrypted file (Microsoft Office or Excel in your case).

So, this is the situation when someone starts editing the file, on the mac or the windows server. After making some changes, you click ‘Save’. This saves it to the temporary location on your hard drive. Since you still have Word / Excel open, AxCrypt will typically not re-encrypt the update to the shared encrypted file (this behavior depends on the individual application and the situation at startup, but for Word / Excel this is what happens).

Thus, while you’re happily editing and saving changes, these are only saved to the temporary decrypted copy. Until you fully close Word / Excel, at which point they file will be automatically re-encrypted to the shared location, and changes made visible to others – *if* they open the file after the update.

Note that AxCrypt does not stop more than one person from editing the file at the same time (we’re working on at least blocking more than one person from making updates but we don’t have that just yet).

If the situation arises that several people are editing the same file at the same time, “last one to save and exit wins”.

The part in your description I can’t explain is: “I can see, from both Macs, that the document has been modified“, unless you by this mean that while the same file is open on the Mac, and you look at the share, you see the last modification date has been updated. If the file is not open on the Mac, and has been cleaned (no red broom icon), then if you open the (modified) file, the changes should really be seen on the Mac as well.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Thank you, Wilberforce!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Jobix,

I think you should update your version of AxCrypt.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Many thanks Ted!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Gregory,

Yes, you’re right. The link I sent is about a slightly different concern, it’s about how to get a non-networked computer working with Premium. My bad.

As mentioned, in the future, we’ll implement a purchase system that would enable you to purchase a license without ever entering a password to our server, but right now we can’t do that since the payment is/must be tied to an account.

Still, as a work-around you could use the method mentioned in the link, and simply use a unique password not used anywhere else for the online part of the operation.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Bill,

No, there’s no need (and not a good idea) to decrypt files before deleting. I’m just trying to understand what the problem is, and unfortunately right now it’s very unclear. Can you give more info?

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Bill,

I probably don’t see the full picture, but if you delete encrypted files while under the control of AxCrypt, you may indeed get unexpected errors if AxCrypt actually expects the files to be there.

Perhaps you can elaborate?

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Concerning the offline license question, see https://forum.axcrypt.net/forums/topic/premium-on-windows-vista/ .

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello KW,

It does not sound like it’s an actual AxCrypt problem, but we’ll try to help you out. Please contact our support, by emailing support att axcrypt dott net .

Include screen shots of the error messages and the AxCrypt window (if it’s there).

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Anonymous,

Sad to hear it – could you let us know just what it is you object to, causing you to “refuse to use AxCrypt 2.0“?

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Michael,

This is how mobile phones work unfortunately. Essentially, all applications are in their own sandboxes (lightweight virtual environments). They do not normally work directly in a shared filesystem, instead files are sent and copied between applications, so when AxCrypt opens a document in Total Commander for example – we send the file to it, and thereafter we lose control of what TC does with it. In this case, it keeps around in it’s local sandbox until you exit it.

You should always use device encryption on mobile devices to keep data there protected. AxCrypt is how you get it there safely, simply put.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Tim,

There’s nothing special with CIFS or other network shares, but there are many many limitations with the type of user mode secure delete AxCrypt (and most similar utilities) use.

What we do, is simple overwrite the file with random data. If the file system “at the other end” for example is journalling and retains shadow or generational copies, this are still there. If the file system or underlying firmware, for some reason does not actually write the actual data of the original file (for example SSD disks), or detects that the file is deleted soon afterwards the caching mechanism could determine the writes are “unnecessary”.

AxCrypt secure wipe protects against standard recovery measures, but not necessarily against advanced forensic techniques. For that physical destruction is the only known method guaranteed to work.

[Author]

Posts