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How to Manage Encryption for File and Printer Sharing in Windows 7?

By Codrut Nistor

Posted in How-to, Windows-7

As Windows 7 is quite advanced it supports 128 bit encryption when sharing files or folders. However in some cases or to be more precise when communicating with legacy versions of Windows operating systems encryption of this level might not be appropriate as legacy operating systems might not support this type of encryption. When this is the case administrators may want to decrease the encryption bits in order to make Windows 7 computer compatible with lower versions of operating systems as far as file and/or printer sharing is concerned. As an administrator if you want to configure this you need to follow the steps given below:

  1. Logon to the computer with administrator account.
  2. Click on Start button.
  3. From the start menu go to Control Panel and from the opened window click on Network and Internet category link.
  4. The opened page click on Network and Sharing Centre category link and on View your basic network information and set up connections page in the left bar click on Change advance sharing settings link.
  5. On Change sharing options for different network profiles page under File sharing connections category select Enable file sharing devices use 40- or 50- bit encryption radio button and click on Ok button to accept your configuration.
  6. Close the opened window.