Dell Encryption Personal Unable to Configure for Encryption
Summary: After installing Dell Encryption (formerly Dell Data Protection | Encryption), and walking through the setup wizard, you receive a message "Unable to Configure for Encryption."
Symptoms
Affected Products:
- Dell Encryption Personal
- Dell Data Protection | Personal Edition

Figure 1: (English Only) Dell Data Protection Setup Wizard
To verify that the cause of the issue, open the LMS output.log in C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell Data Protect\Encryption\LMS\Logs or LogBundleName\ProgramFiles-DDP\Encryption\LMS\Logs from a Diagnostic Info bundle. Below is a sample error:
20xx-xx-x xx:xx:xx,xxx ERROR CONTAINER [4] - Credant.Common.Security.SecurityException: Error trying to protect databaseSettings ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Failed to decrypt using provider 'LmsRsaProvider'. Error message from the provider: The RSA key container could not be opened. (C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell Data Protection\Encryption\LMS\Database.config line 2) ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: The RSA key container could not be opened.
Cause
Not Applicable
Resolution
To resolve this issue:
- Uninstall Dell Encryption Personal (formerly Dell Data Protection | Personal Edition).
- Once Dell Encryption is removed, and you have verified all files are decrypted.
- Delete the Encryption folder in
C:\Program Files\Dell\Dell Data Protection. - Starting with v8.15 and later you must delete the following folder:
c:\programdata\dell\dell data protection\encryption.
- Delete the Encryption folder in

Figure 2: (English Only) Dell Encryption Folder in Windows Explorer
- Remove the
credsecagent$adminlocal account from the computer.

Figure 3: (English Only) Computer Management
- Reinstall Dell Encryption.
Windows Home Editions does not contain Local Users and Groups within the Computer Management snap-in. Validating and removing the credsecagent$admin account can be done using Powershell as an administrator.
Within an administrative Powershell session:
Check for local users:
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_UserAccount -Filter "LocalAccount='True'"
If the credsecagent$admin account is found, they can be removed by running the following command within the same administrative Powershell session:
net user ‘credsecagent$admin’ /DELETE
NOTE: The single quotes are needed so the $ is not seen as an operator.
To contact support, see Dell knowledge base article Dell Data Security International Support Phone Numbers.
Go to TechDirect to generate a technical support request online.
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