This Windows 11 installation setting can cut your SSD performance in half. Here’s how to disable this.
BitLocker, Microsoft’s software encryption for SSDs, has encountered its fair share of problems over the years since its release. And now another potential problem looms for Windows 11 users with the upcoming version 24H2 update.
There’s a new report that Windows 11 version 24H2, also called the 2024 update, may “enable BitLocker by default during installation” in several versions of Windows, including the Home edition, according to the German news outlet Desk mud (reported by New). Why is this considered bad news? For several reasons.
What’s the problem?
The first is that using BitLocker for encryption is possible seriously slow down your PCs performance by up to 45% in Windows Pro, and this would most likely affect other versions of the operating system as well. This is because Windows 11 constantly requests encryption and decryption processes with data on your SSD as your computer performs read and write operations.
The second problem is that a user who is not familiar with encryption in general or this specific issue with BitLocker may have their data encrypted without them knowing, and then be unable to decrypt and recover their data because they do not have the necessary misplaced or failed to save the key.
There is also a third problem with BitLocker in terms of security, according to YouTuber Stacksmashingits coding may be cracked remarkably easily. Their video shows that if you use a Windows 10 or Windows 11 Pro device with a special external Trusted Platform Module (TPM), your encrypted data can be decrypted and read. All you need is a $10 Raspberry Pi Pico, physical access to the target endpoint, and the knowledge of how to do it.
How do you fix it?
Of course, there is an easy way to solve this auto-encoding. You only need to disable device encryption in Privacy & security in Settings. Fortunately, users have that option, but many regular Windows 11 users, especially those running Windows 11 Home, may not be aware of the situation, let alone how to fix it.
Hopefully, if this report is true, Microsoft will disable auto-encryption before starting the update. It is unnecessary and causes more problems than it actually solves.