Windows 10: Desktop is encrypting files automatically

I recently got this new and very annoying problem on my laptop

Any file that goes through the desktop is automatically encrypted.

Any word/excel/photo etc file that goes through the desktop is encrypted and receives this small padlock on it.

After doing a lot of digging online and in windows- I did not find any solution for this.

As I understand the problem is that the desktop itself is encrypted:

When I try to remove the encryption, I get this error:




Can anyone help me with this?


thanks a lot!

:)

 

Desktop is encrypting files automatically

Dear technologically savvy people,

I have no idea what I did, but now any file that goes through the desktop is automatically encrypted. If I place a photo on the desktop- encrypted, if I change the name of a file on the desktop- encrypted, saved on the desktop- encrypted.

It's a tedious process to manually click Properties>General Tab>Advanced>Deselect Encrypt data>Apply for every single file, every time it touches the desktop. I think I found the source of the problem, where under Local Disk>Users>(my username) the desktop
tab itself has a padlock on it, as shown below.





I don't know how it got there, or how to get rid of that padlock, as every time I try to click Properties>General Tab>Advanced>Deselect Encrypt data>Apply on the desktop, it gives the following error:





I used the instructions listed in a different forum:

Why Are All My Newly Created Files and Folders Encrypted?

This instructed me to use the "cipher /u /n" command in administrator mode, then "cipher /d "path to the file"" to decrypt whatever was wrong.





I know there's nothing more on the whole computer that I've encrypted. As the results show, unfortunately, nothing else encrypted was found, and nothing was decrypted.

I really don't want to create a new profile to get around it. What can I do to get my computer to stop automatically encrypting stuff?

 

Desktop is encrypting files automatically

Hi Desiree,

Thanks for the reply!

The only change I explicitly remember making is encrypting a .txt file on the desktop. I do not know if I changed anything in any kind of settings afterwards. It was the first time I had encrypted anything on this computer.

Yes, I am still experiencing the same issue. The desktop icon in Local Disk>Users>(my username) still has a padlock on it, and anything brought/changed to the desktop is automatically encrypted.

 

Files on the desktop are always encrypted

Hello meNESS_642,

An effective encryption ensures that a data is secured and protected at all times, but this may become an issue if you only want to encrypt certain files and not all files that you are creating or saving. As a work around to resolve this issue, we recommend
that you follow the steps below:

• Press the Windows key + X, then select
  File Explorer.
• In the Address bar, enter %userprofile%.
• All the File folder paths for your user profile will show up.
• Right-click, select New and then Folder.
• Name that folder as New Desktop or name of your preference.
• Select then Right-click on the original Desktop Folder and choose
  Properties.
• Go to Location tab. In the path location, edit it and enter the new location of the new desktop folder.
  
• Click OK, then Apply.
• It will ask you to transfer all your files from that folder, if you wish to copy everything select
  Yes.
• Automatically, the new Desktop folder will take place and you’ll be able to save files without encryption.
  

Let us know how it goes.