Windows 10: Personal Vault exposes files when they are deleted

Although Personal Vault seems a good idea better not use it for sensitive data. Items might appear undisclosed in the Recycle Bin or on you device. The Personal Vault is not a secure place to store your data. As the data stays in the recycle bin for 30 days items removed from the Personal Vault will be visible without access to the Personal Vault.



Please wait a bit until the Microsoft designers have coverd this flaw.

:)

 

OneDrive Personal Vault cannot be unlocked on Windows10.

I was able to get rid of the Red X on my OneDrive icon and the error message saying that the Personal Vault could not be synchronized by doing the following:

1. Access the personal vault OnLine via the the View OnLine option from the desktop icon in the task bar.
   
2. Open the vault via the Web Browser and select all the files and folders in the vault.
3. Count all the files and folders presently in the Personal Vault.
4. Move all the files and folders out of the Personal Vault to another folder in your OneDrive.
5. Refresh and verify the Personal Vault is empty.
6. Verify all your important files have been successfully moved by verifying the folder and file count.
7. Disable the Personal Vault online via the Web browser.
8. Select the Personal Vault and attempt to delete it. A message "Cant delete Personal Vault' appears.
9. Click on 'Go to settings'.
10. Select the options to Disable the Personal Vault <Select Disable>. and "Disable" when asked are you sure. [NOTE: when you do this, any contents in the vault are irretrievably lost. So make sure it is empty first.]
11. Wait 30-60 seconds for your OneDrive desktop to synch.
12. Go back to the browser and select Enable on the Persona Vault window if it is still opened.
13. If you closed the window, select Settings in the upper right of online OneDrive (to the left of the question mark), select options, select Personal Vault from the left side menu, then select Enable.
14. A pop-up stating, "Your Personal Vault is back". Select 'got it'.
15. Click on OneDrive in the upper left corner of the browser screen.
16. Find your Personal Vault in your file/folder list.
17. Open it (you will have to authenticate to open).
18. Inspect the vault. It should be empty. In some cases there will be old "uncached" files that appears. It was the failed synching that caused the Red X. Reestablishing the Personal Vault allows the synch to proceed. Be careful as these files might not
    contain the most contemporaneous data.
19. You should now be able to use the Personal Vault as before without the Red X. You can move the files you moved out of the Personal Vault back into the Personal Vault - - begin careful to decide which version to keep of any duplicate files.

 

Allowing an application to access a file in Personal Vault

Hi Mike,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I understand that you want to move files to Personal Vault and have application access it on multiple computers.

Files in Personal Vault files are encrypted using BitLocker when in use locally on a Windows 10 PC. Sharing of files in Personal Vault is also blocked, meaning you can’t accidentally share a file from Personal Vault. In order
to share a file you need to move the file out of the Personal Vault to share it.

You may also refer the “Frequently asked questions” section in
Protect your OneDrive files in Personal Vault

However, let me help to point you in the right direction for support related to OneDrive issues.

We do have dedicated support team for OneDrive and
you can get in touch with them for further assistance. Follow the below steps to contact the OneDrive support team.

Sign in to OneDrive.com from any browser or Open OneDrive App, click the ‘?’ help icon on the top banner of the page and select
Email OneDrive support. Submit your question and follow the prompts to request support.

Regards,

Vivian S

 

Moving a photo to Personal Vault and then deleting it results in corrupt cache or db in Photos app

The original version of this post was confusing because I was working through the issue as I was posting. Here's the updated version after I worked through it and understood it.

What happened:

- I moved a photo to the Personal Vault on OneDrive

- Immediately after I deleted the photo within a second or two of moving it

- This resulted in the thumbnail and filename remaining cached in Photos but you couldn't delete it. The remaining entry for the photo showed in Collection but was just a thumbnail, the full size image wasn't there. If you try to delete it it would say "cannot
delete." Tried reboot, remove folders from Photos, sign out of photos, resync all OneDrive files, etc, etc. Nothing worked.

I couldn't tell if the problem was OneDrive, Personal Vault, or Photos. In the end I believe it was a combination of problems with Personal Vault and Photos.

I was able to reproduce the issue multiple times with multiple photos. Unfortunately, reproducing the issue eventually corrupted my Personal Vault. I couldn't sync OneDrive at all and had to disable personal vault. That solved my OneDrive problems, but the
corrupted entries in the Photos app remained.

There is no solution except to reset the Photos app and then re-index your whole collection. In my case this takes around 20 hours, so it is a horrible price to pay for hitting a dumb bug by mistake while exploring features.

If and when MS read this, some suggestions:

• In photos add the ability to force delete an entry in the database even if accessing the file errors out. Maybe if the user tries to delete a folder and you get some kind of error from the system give the user the option of waiting, or removing the entry
  from the database. This would have saved me 20 hours of indexing.
• In OneDrive, once a file has been moved to the Personal Vault make it inactive and immutable until enough time has passed for OneDrive to do whatever it needs to do. Apps and Explorer should be blocked from making any further changes or deleting the file
  until OneDrive is done. And add deleting a file within a second or two of adding to the vault on the client to your tests.