EFS Trouble - External Drive

I have two machines, A and B, which I share files between using a USB
hard drive. They are both Windows XP SP2 and I am an administrator on
both machines (although I am not a domain admin on machine B). I
exported my EFS certificate AND private key from machine A and
successfully imported it onto machine B. I can see the certificate AND
private key of machine A in machine B's certificate store.

Now, when I encrypt files on the USB drive using machine A, machine B
cannot read them. They appear as though they are not encrypted (they
aren't green) and cipher.exe doesn't place an E next to them. When I try
to access them I just get "Access is denied" errors.

I tried taking ownership of the files, and that didn't change the
situation at all. I tried forcing the files to decrypt without success.
I am completely unable to use machine B to access files encrypted by
machine A.

I have spent more than three hours reading every technet article
regarding EFS as well as other people's problems posted on various
boards and in this group. I still have not seen a simple explanation of
how you can use EFS on files that will be accessed by other computers.
Everything just says to import your certificate with private key and
doesn't mention what to do after that.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

"Jerry Baker" wrote:

> I have two machines, A and B, which I share files between using a USB
> hard drive. They are both Windows XP SP2 and I am an administrator on
> both machines (although I am not a domain admin on machine B). I
> exported my EFS certificate AND private key from machine A and
> successfully imported it onto machine B. I can see the certificate AND
> private key of machine A in machine B's certificate store.
>
> Now, when I encrypt files on the USB drive using machine A, machine B
> cannot read them. They appear as though they are not encrypted (they
> aren't green) and cipher.exe doesn't place an E next to them. When I try
> to access them I just get "Access is denied" errors.
>
> I tried taking ownership of the files, and that didn't change the
> situation at all. I tried forcing the files to decrypt without success.
> I am completely unable to use machine B to access files encrypted by
> machine A.
>
> I have spent more than three hours reading every technet article
> regarding EFS as well as other people's problems posted on various
> boards and in this group. I still have not seen a simple explanation of
> how you can use EFS on files that will be accessed by other computers.
> Everything just says to import your certificate with private key and
> doesn't mention what to do after that.
>
> Thanks for any help you can offer.
>