The Encrypted File System, Microsoft’s built-in file encryption utility has been around for quite some time. Files that have been encrypted in such a way can appear in Windows Explorer with a green tint as opposed to the black of normal files or blue for NTFS compressed files. Files that have been encrypted are tied to the specific user, and it can be difficult to decrypt the file without the user’s assistance. On top of this, if the user loses their password it can become impossible to decrypt the files as the decryption process is tied to the user’s login and password. EFS can only occur on NTFS formatted partitions, and while it is capable of encrypting entire drives it is most often reserved to individual files and folders. For larger purposes, Bitlocker is a better alternative.