Help With Security

Gpg4win help-en
1

Hi everyone, I’m fairly new to this fascinating world (fairly new would be an understatement), and I’m trying my best to learn through forums and guides online, but have finally come to a point where I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Here’s my problem;

I installed GPG2win to a hidden volume in an encrypted USB, and it works fine. The thing is though, when I dismount that USB, and install the program on my C drive, all my keys etc appear in the keyring, thus making me realize somehow the program hasn’t installed exclusively to the USB like I thought it would.

Is this me being completely idiotic, because it’s the same OS it just can’t be exclusive to a hidden volume, or is there a way to install one instance of the program on my computer, and one on the hidden volume, without the keys appearing on my main computer.

Thank you :slight_smile:
Jamie

2

Hi,
If you just install gpg4win on a usb stick it will still use the default home directory %APPDATA%/gnupg

You can create a portable version though that will use the usb stick as the home directory.

From our download page:

To create a portable Gpg4win version use the included tool mkportable.exe.
HOWTO: Install Gpg4win with all components and then run from the command line (cmd) in install directory: mkportable.exe [OPTIONS] TARGETDIR. Use mkportable.exe --help to get all options. The portable version does not include GpgOL and GpgEX! Your certificates and settings are saved in the directory ‘home’ of portable version.
Please note: Do not use portable applications - especially crypto applications - on potentially infected systems.

Regards,
Andre