Adding Ecrypt/Decrypt options to Vista right click menu

Have you ever had the desire or need to encrypt or decrypt files in Vista? I have a few times and set out one day on a perilous trip round the internet to find out it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be...
How good was that?

Well anyway, here is how.

Note: It involves adding a registry key, but it's only adding a single one and is not too hard to mess up with unless you're Winnie the Pooh.

1. Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then find the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

What should be up right now is...

2. In the right-hand panel, create a new 32-bit DWORD value called EncryptionContextMenu and give it a value of 1.

Now when you right-click on a file, you'll see a new option called Encrypt

<img src="http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/36/m_8f82258c782840a7a4c4a3743d8ddb10.png">


3. When you choose this option, you'll receive the following dialog, asking if you want to encrypt just the file, or also the parent folder. You can also choose just the file as the default.




4. Once the files are encrypted, you'll probably notice that the title of the file is now green, indicating that it's been encrypted. The right-click option will also now change to Decrypt.




It would be handy for Windows to actually build these in to the OS themselves though...