This could lead to more data being lost than from ransomware.<p>The best part is Windows doesn't even notify you about it. It will show you numerous useless notifications and now even ads, but it won't notify you that it has encrypted all your data. As that would be too "intrusive".<p>I already know of one case where all data was lost. Somehow recovery key was not stored in Microsoft account.
Definitely save those recovery keys, because BitLocker loves freaking out after BIOS updates or minor hardware changes. I think I had to enter mine after a GPU firmware update.
For everyone I know, their personal PCs don't store data that's valuable to criminals who might steal their PC, but do store personally important data like family photos, etc.<p>They all would much rather have the disk exposed to anyone with physical access and have their data recoverable in the much more likely case where the PC suffers physical damage or some other kind of software/hardware failiure.<p>Account passwords and session tokens can be reset, photos of loved ones can't can't be retaken
Am I understanding the article correctly that it's for new installs only?<p>Also is "on by default" the right wording for something that needs a registry change to turn off? That just seems like it's forced with a workaround that they'll remove at some point.<p>Last point, does that mean that windows is going to take a massive speed penalty going forward since they also default to their slow software encryption over hardware encryption?<p>Man this kinda blows. I'm hoping that W12 will have all this Vista-esk transition crap sorted out by the time it launches.
So whose computer is it at this point? MS encrypts your data, but keeps the recovery key.<p>Let's say you encrypt the drive, and then travel outside the country and come back. The border patrol officer says "I want to see everything on your hard drive" and you refuse, being an American citizen and all.<p>They call Microsoft and recover all the data...
The issue is lots of folks create Microsoft Accounts then promptly forget the password, then set up the auto-login they know and love. I bet there are millions of forgotten / zombie Microsoft Accounts.<p>A lot of people are about to have nasty surprises the next time they reinstall Windows because their kid downloaded some malware and realize their data is all gone.
Great to see that it's no longer a pro only / enterprise feature. I've long left Windows behind for Linux (with very few regrets) but the paywalled FDE was definitely a motivating factor at the time - it felt like a table stakes feature for a modern OS to me.<p>If they started offering reasonable ways to opt out of all telemetry and advertising (ie: without buying enterprise/using third party software and crossing your fingers) I could almost be tempted to dual boot for the games/software that don't run well in wine/proton.<p>I wouldn't be particularly opposed to paying for the privilege either, but don't make me buy X copies to be eligible.
I mean between bitlocker and T2 I’d rather have T2. At least with bitlocker the key is in my Microsoft account so if something happened to my pc and the drive was still intact I can easily access the data again. On a T2 secured Mac, if something happened then I’m screwed.
I mean, good? Physical access to a device shouldn’t automatically mean all your data is with the wind.<p>Theoretically this was already on for “new” devices since sometime in the Windows 10 timeframe.