How to disable encryption of .sln files in Visual Studio on a removable drive?

Question

Description of the problem: (occurs at least in VS2005 and VS2008, not tested in VS 2010)

If a project (e.g. .csproj) or a solution file (.sln) opens from a removable drive, and something happens ... it seems that if the drive is disconnected without safe deletion, or if the computer works, or if VS crashes, then the project and / or decision files have been encrypted. It seems that Visual Studio encrypts the project files when it is opened and only decrypts them when Visual Studio or the project is closed properly. If something unexpected happens, the files remain encrypted.

In these cases, this is a Toshiba hard drive, but it is also found on other removable hard drives or USB keys.

This is not a problem until the drive is connected to the same computer (the files are encrypted, so they can only be opened by the Win user who encrypted them). But when the drive is connected to another computer or worse ... if Windows installation fails, the project files are no longer available.

Is there any way to disable this feature? Or is it a mistake, and it needs to be solved only "without using removable drives"?

Answer 1

I am not aware of the built-in encryption for solution files or projects, and quite often I move projects to a USB drive. It is possible that this is provided by some kind of service on your computer or by the drive itself - but it seems to me that the more likely explanation is simply a file corruption or a damaged drive.

Answer 2

I know this is an older post, but just to add to this ...

I am running a machine with Windows 7 Professional x64. Last night, Windows lost touch with my RAID controller from nowhere (I can’t say if the lack of a RAID controller or Windows was the reason, it’s not enough to view events). As soon as this happened, Tom disappeared from Windows Explorer (makes sense).

Then Windows pulled out a message in the system tray, telling me that I should back up my personal certificates (PFX file) somewhere, since I did not do this after a while. I ignored this step, since I never used anything that would require personal certificates (no EFS or anything like that), so I disconnected because everything was spinning at that moment (the page file is on the volume that goodbye)

After rebooting, my RAID array passed the test, so I booted into Windows and started working normally, and not in safe mode. Voila, everything is back to normal, or so I thought ... I am experiencing the same problem as here and published at http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/277832-projects-became-encrypted-when -i-used-ext-drive-on-laptop-now-what / .

Thus, between these messages, we can deduce (possibly) that Windows is not doing very well with Removable Media or Volumes, which suddenly disappear without a clean teardown.

I’m not sure why this will cause our files to start using the Encrypted attribute for them, although this is still a mystery ... Unfortunately, I think we will simply be surprised, because this is probably the Windows hood in WinFS, HAL or one of these untouchable layers of abstraction.

I hope this additional understanding can help other people understand that the WTF is coming up with this.