FileEncryptionStatusA function (winbase.h)

Article
02/22/2024

Retrieves the encryption status of the specified file.

Syntax

BOOL FileEncryptionStatusA(
  [in]  LPCSTR  lpFileName,
  [out] LPDWORD lpStatus
);

Parameters

[in] lpFileName

The name of the file.

[out] lpStatus

A pointer to a variable that receives the encryption status of the file. This parameter can be one of the following values.

Value	Meaning
FILE_ENCRYPTABLE 0	The file can be encrypted. Home, Home Premium, Starter, and ARM Editions of Windows: FILE_ENCRYPTABLE may be returned but EFS does not support encrypting files on these editions of Windows.
FILE_IS_ENCRYPTED 1	The file is encrypted.
FILE_READ_ONLY 8	The file is a read-only file.
FILE_ROOT_DIR 3	The file is a root directory. Root directories cannot be encrypted.
FILE_SYSTEM_ATTR 2	The file is a system file. System files cannot be encrypted.
FILE_SYSTEM_DIR 4	The file is a system directory. System directories cannot be encrypted.
FILE_SYSTEM_NOT_SUPPORT 6	The file system does not support file encryption.
FILE_UNKNOWN 5	The encryption status is unknown. The file may be encrypted.
FILE_USER_DISALLOWED 7	Reserved for future use.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is nonzero.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies.

Technology	Supported
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol	Yes
SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO)	No
SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO)	No
Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS)	No
Resilient File System (ReFS)	No

SMB 3.0 does not support EFS on shares with continuous availability capability.

Note

The winbase.h header defines FileEncryptionStatus as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows XP Professional [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winbase.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Advapi32.lib
DLL	Advapi32.dll