I recently discovered the cipher command on Windows 10 command line and have been trying to use it to encrypt a directory or an absolute path. However, I keep receiving the error “Request not supported” when trying to execute the command “cipher /e [directory name]” or “cipher /e [absolute path].”
I am running Microsoft Windows 10 Home, have executed the command as an administrator in both ‘cmd’ and ‘powershell,’ and the disk’s file system is NTFS. I have also given all users access to the ‘Security’ attribute on the targeted folder (which is currently empty for testing purposes).
Can someone provide a suggestion or solution for why I am encountering this error?
Am I missing something important?
3 Answers
The “cipher /e” command is used to encrypt a folder or file using the Encrypting File System (EFS) feature in Windows. However, the error message “Request not supported” suggests that the EFS feature is not enabled on your system. EFS is not available on Windows 10 Home edition, it’s only available on Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise edition.
If your goal is to encrypt a folder or file, you can use third-party software such as VeraCrypt, BitLocker, or AxCrypt to encrypt your files and directories.