1. Hold down the Windows key and press R.

2. Type regedit and click OK.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then SYSTEM
then CurrentControlSet
then Control
then click FileSystem.

4. Look for an entry on the right side for NtfsDisableEncryption. If it doesn’t exist, you will need to create it. To do so, right-click on FileSystem and select New > DWORD Value. Give the value a name of NtfsDisableEncryption. Press the Enter key when you are done.

5. Right-click the NtfsDisableEncryption entry and click Modify.

6. To disable EFS set the Value data to 1. (To enable EFS again, set the Value data to 0 or delete NftsDisableEncrpytion)

7. Restart the computer to apply changes.

Now when trying to encrypt a folder, the following error will be produced:

An error occurred applying attributes to the file:
{file path and filename}
Access is denied.

Windows Vista Command

In Windows Vista, you can accomplish the same thing by simply using the following command on the Run line: