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Miscellaneous
Using TrueCrypt Without Administrator Privileges
In Windows, a user who does not have administrator privileges
can
use TrueCrypt, but only after a
system administrator installs TrueCrypt on the system. The reason for that
is that TrueCrypt needs
a device driver to provide transparent on-the-fly encryption/decryption, and users without
administrator privileges cannot install/start device drivers in Windows.
After a system administrator installs TrueCrypt on the system, users without administrator
privileges will be
able to run TrueCrypt, mount/dismount any type of TrueCrypt volume, load/save
data from/to it, and create file-hosted TrueCrypt volumes on the system. However, users without
administrator privileges cannot encrypt/format partitions, cannot
create NTFS volumes, cannot
install/uninstall TrueCrypt, cannot change passwords/keyfiles for TrueCrypt partitions/devices,
cannot backup/restore headers of TrueCrypt partitions/devices, and they cannot run TrueCrypt in
‘portable’ mode.
Warning: No matter what kind of software you use, as regards personal privacy in most
cases, it is
not
safe to work with sensitive data under systems where you do not have
administrator privileges, as the administrator can easily capture
and copy your sensitive data,
including passwords and keys.