After digging a bit more I realized that the Alienware 18 doesn't include a TPM chip, and enabling BitLocker without a TPM requires registry edits, which I'm not sure I want to do yet.
I purchased an XPS 17 laptop and as i wanted to use bitlocker, the sales rep happily upgrade me to Win7 Ultimate.. Unfortunately this laptop did not have a TPM chip and as such bitlocker would not work out of the box :emotion-6:. However, a simple group policy editor change allowed me to activate bitlocker and use a usb memory stick to store the startup keys :emotion-1: See this howto if you are tempted to do the same...
Oh, and the only downside i have seen is that, sometimes, if you remove the usb memory stick containing the start keys and later the system goes to sleep, when you try and wake up the pc it may not see the memory stick you reinserted. In such cases, then you may have to type that long recovery key to kick the pc into life at which point all should be good again....
And if you leave the memory stick containing the key in your system while you are using the pc and always shut it down taking the memory stick out when you are not at the computer, security is still OK, otherwise it's just a placebo especially if you have the start key on a micro usb memory stick which you always have plugged in (may as well not bother with bitlocker then)...
sethwb
2 Posts
0
August 23rd, 2013 10:00
After digging a bit more I realized that the Alienware 18 doesn't include a TPM chip, and enabling BitLocker without a TPM requires registry edits, which I'm not sure I want to do yet.
Thanks!
S
skylarking
2 Intern
•
548 Posts
0
August 25th, 2013 21:00
I purchased an XPS 17 laptop and as i wanted to use bitlocker, the sales rep happily upgrade me to Win7 Ultimate.. Unfortunately this laptop did not have a TPM chip and as such bitlocker would not work out of the box :emotion-6:. However, a simple group policy editor change allowed me to activate bitlocker and use a usb memory stick to store the startup keys :emotion-1: See this howto if you are tempted to do the same...
Oh, and the only downside i have seen is that, sometimes, if you remove the usb memory stick containing the start keys and later the system goes to sleep, when you try and wake up the pc it may not see the memory stick you reinserted. In such cases, then you may have to type that long recovery key to kick the pc into life at which point all should be good again....
And if you leave the memory stick containing the key in your system while you are using the pc and always shut it down taking the memory stick out when you are not at the computer, security is still OK, otherwise it's just a placebo especially if you have the start key on a micro usb memory stick which you always have plugged in (may as well not bother with bitlocker then)...