[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Great!

Didn’t you see the “red lamp” notice, it should have been visible for a long time. It’s supposed to tell you there’s a new version available.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello RP,

Here’s the thing – suppose indeed your password gets stolen! If one password gets “stolen”, you’ll have to assume all are in most cases. But with one strong password, you’ll at least be protected from the password being cracked, or guessed if it relates to your other passwords in any way.

If a password for AxCrypt-encrypted files is revealed for whatever reason, all files who were originally encrypted with that password will be possible to open. That’s just how it works, since AxCrypt is essentially still password based file encryption, although we do have some other features added on top of it.

But, what this means, is that if you do change your password for your AxCrypt ID you can still open all “old” files with their original password, as well as with the new one. For a longer discussion and explanation you might want to read http://www.axcrypt.net/blog/axcrypt-online-vs-offline/ . It’s about online vs. offline, but it ties into this very much.

You’re welcome to change your password every year, but it’s not something I recommend. Use a really good password, and keep keeping it secret. There’s not much additional security added by changing passwords unless you also at the same time re-encrypt *all* files encrypted with the old password.

Finally, always consider just what scenarios you’re really protecting against and take appropriate (not too large, not too small) measures based on that.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello,

Please start by ensuring you are running the most recent version of AxCrypt, 2.1.1474 (or later). You can find it at http://www.axcrypt.net/ .

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello RP,

No, not really. On the web site there’s a validation limit of 250 characters, but we’ll be removing that.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello RP,

The use of different passwords is often an unfortunate misuse of the old software. The only legitimate use-case for different passwords in AxCrypt 1 was if you wanted to share encrypted files with different teams.

Please read a longer disussion about this here: http://www.axcrypt.net/blog/use-of-different-passwords/ .

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Yes RP, The key files feature is discontinued in version 2. It may come back in a different form using hardware tokens as carrier of a full strength key, but for now we do not support it in version 2. It was seldom used, and the added security is very small compared to a good and strong password in the sense that you can’t reasonable break either. If it takes 100 years to crack a single strong password used with AxCrypt, there’s not much benefit in a full strength key – even if the time then is more like perhaps several 1000 years or a million years or whatever. A good strong password is strong enough for most situations, and the key file feature has confused more users than it has been used.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Paul,

Well… Since I wrote the code, I know what it can and can’t do and AxCrypt cannot encrypt a file just becuase it’s there. It may encrypt it as a result of several conditions beeing met. In your case, if it was created in the ‘My AxCrypt’, it’ll be encrypted with AxCrypt exists, the screen saver goes active, or you click the red broom icon for example.

Yes “Stop securing and remove from list”, it’s a bug. It should not be available as an option when the file is open.

The Secured Folders option is enabled automatically for the “My AxCrypt” folder, if you did not place your file there then it was encrypted by a manual action by you.

The recent files information is simply just that – files that you have recently opened (or dragged and dropped to AxCrypt). The actual storage is a text file in %localappdata%\AxCrypt – FileSystemState.txt . You can open it up with Notepad and see exactly what it contains.

No, we do not look in Windows recent files list. There is no auto encryption, except as mentioned above for Secured Folders.

If you can try to reproduce the chain of events it would be great, since there’s obviously something we can make more clear here to avoid misunderstandings in the future.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello RP,

If a file is encrypted by AxCrypt 1, and with a different password than you use to sign to AxCrypt 2, yes the More… button will be displayed.

We don’t really know if a key file was used or not, there’s no way to know that, but if the file is encrypted with version 1, it could be so we need to offer that option.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Jeff,

That’s a bad situation. You should check the folders located at %localappdata%\AxCrypt . Open Windows Explorer and type it in the address bar and hit return:

You may find some randomly named folders there. Check them and see if you might find the file still there.

What you did when you answered ‘yes’ to the question from Microsoft, was essentially equivalent to resetting the computer or unplugging the power in the middle of AxCrypts operation. I’m amazed that Windows would operate in that manner, it’s not only AxCrypt that will have problems with that scenario.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Alan,

Could you please send a full report as described here: http://www.axcrypt.net/blog/send-complete-error-report/ ?

It’s likely there’s something else causing the crash. We had a similar report a few days ago, where the problem was caused by Lavasoft Web Companion.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Johan,

Yes – if you try to install 1.7 with 2.1 installed it’ll tell you just that. You can them partially co-exist, by uninstalling 2.1, installing 1.7 and then downloading and using AxCrypt 2 portable / standalone. The version 2 won’t integrate with Explorer, but it can be run standalone.

If I may ask – why do you want to? We know there’s a lot of changes from 1.7 to 2.1, but once you get used to them we feel they are for the better! If you could tell me what your concerns are, I may be able to help or explain how you should be using version 2 to get the benefits it offers vs. version 1.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello RP,

It’s behind the ‘More…’ button. We used to have the file key button available directly, but that caused massive confusion by many users, even though they’d been using AxCrypt 1 for a long time.

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Thank you Thiago!

I’ve filed a bug report on this, https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/227/high-cpu-and-application-non-responsive .

We’ll look into it asap, but since we’ve not had it reported from elsewhere (I’m sure it exists, just not that frequently), it may take a week or two before we get to it. We’re working intensly on all fronts right now, most importantly on mobile apps which I think will make many users happy!

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for posting. I’m not really sure what has happened, but obviously there’s a misunderstanding somewhere.

AxCrypt will *never* fully automatically encrypt a file, so there’s more to the story here. If you create a file in a ‘Secured Folder’ of which there’s a default ‘My AxCrypt’, it will be encrypted when you click the broom icon, exit AxCrypt or sign out (manually or automatically). Otherwise, you’ll have to ask for the file to be encrypted.

The password used for all encryption is your sign in password. (There’s more to this story as well, but that’s the simple answer).

What I think happened thereafter is actually a bug, thank you for that! You probably used the “Remove from list but keep file secured” when the file was in fact opened by an application in it’s decrypted state. That option should be disabled in this situation.

Something like this:

We’ll fix this asap. I’ve opened an issue for this bug here: https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/226/remove-from-recent-files-list-options-are .

If you send me your email to support@axcrypt.net, I’ll be happy to give you an addition month of Premium Trial – we do that when users report new significant bugs to us as a small token of our appreciation.

 

[AxCrypt SupportModerator]

Hello Christine,

If it says you’re entering the wrong password, chances are very, very high that you are.

Can you send a screen shot please of the situation? If you do not want to post it here, send an email to support@axcrypt.net .

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