VeraCrypt 1.25.7 update reintroduces support for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 systems

Martin Brinkmann
Jan 9, 2022
Encryption
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12

The latest version of the open source encryption software VeraCrypt brings back support for the operating systems Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The developers of VeraCrypt released VeraCrypt 1.25.4 in December 2021. One of the changes of the release was the removal of support for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 / 8.1. The reason for the removal was that new requirements for driver code signing forced the development team to drop support for these versions of Windows.

Tip: here is how you fix the automatic repair issue of VeraCrypt on Windows.

Windows Vista is no longer supported by Microsoft. Windows 7 is in its third year of extended security releases, and Windows 8.1 is still in extended support. The official end of support date for Windows 8.1 is January 10, 2023. Both Windows 7 and 8.1 will run out of support at around the same time.

VeraCrypt 1.25.7 brings back support for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The team notes that certain patches need to be installed on Windows 7 and Vista devices to get the latest version of VeraCrypt installed on these devices.

Windows 7 support requires that either KB3033929 or KB4474419 is installed.

  • KB3033929 is a security update that Microsoft released on September 3, 2015.
  • KB4474419 is the SHA-2 code signing support update.

Windows Vista support requires that either KB4039648 or KB4474419 is installed.

With these patches installed, VeraCrypt 1.25.7 installs fine on the three operating system versions.

The new version introduces another useful option that is specific to Windows machines. Three Registry options have been added that may be used to tune the performance "for SSD disks and having better stability under heavy load".

Here is what the three Registry values do and how you set them:

  1. Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start, typing regedit.exe and loading the result.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\veracrypt.
  3. Create the DWORDs with a right-click on veracrypt and the selection of New > Dword (32-bit) Value) from the context menu.

The DWORD VeraCryptEncryptionFragmentSize defines the size of encryption date fragment in KiB. The default value is 256, it can be increased up to a value of 2048.

The DWORD VeraCryptEncryptionIoRequestCount defines the maximum number of parallel I/O requests. The default is 16, it can be increased up to a value of 8192.

The DWORD VeraCryptEncryptionItemCount defines the maximum number of encryption queue items processed in parallel. Its default value and maximum value is half the value of VeraCryptEncryptionIoRequestCount.

The developers suggest to change the values to 512 (VeraCryptEncryptionFragmentSize), 128 (VeraCryptEncryptionIoRequestCount) and 64 (VeraCryptEncryptionItemCount) respectively, as it enhances "sequential read speed on some SSD NVMe systems".

VeraCrypt users who run Solid State Drives, especially NVMe drives, may need to experiment with the options to find the best values for their systems and use cases.

Now You: do you encrypt your systems? (via Deskmodder)

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VeraCrypt 1.25.7 update reintroduces support for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 systems
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VeraCrypt 1.25.7 update reintroduces support for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 systems
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The latest version of the open source encryption software VeraCrypt brings back support for the operating systems Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. Clairvaux said on February 28, 2023 at 11:06 am
    Reply

    Whoaaa… Vera Crypt forces you to add registry entries in order to make it run faster and more reliably on some types of SSDs… Plus, you need to “experiment” to find the correct values…

    I’ve always said that Vera Crypt was not polished enough for use by the general public, and this confirms my judgement. Such level of geekiness is not tolerable.

  2. VeryCrypt Indeed said on January 10, 2022 at 8:56 am
    Reply

    Back to the drawing board boys. Windows 7 32-Bit, ESU patched up to December 2021, both here mentioned KB’s installed. First try with services: bits, windows modules installer and windows update off (because I update once a month and those need not to run in the background EVER on this machine) Click on VeraCrypt installer (also tried the portable) a popup appears which claims I have not installed either one of the KB’s. Interesting, VeraCrypt is lying straight to my face. Next, start those 3 services and try again. Now absolutely nothing happens, no popup. A VeraCrypt process is running in task manager. Restart machine and try again. Same result. Back to VeraCrypt 1.25.4 and never try this again. Useless.

    1. Anonymous said on January 10, 2022 at 3:02 pm
      Reply

      Check in Task Manager if TrustedInstaller.exe is running, while you are running VeraCrypt v.1.25.7 installer.
      It “revokes” TrustedInstaller.exe (Windows Modules Installer) first, in order to determine whether required patches are installed or not. It may take a while and no popup appears, so it can look like VeraCrypt v.1.25.7 installer is “broken” in some way, but it is not true.
      As soon as TrustedInstaller.exe ends it’s work, VeraCrypt installer window appears, like in previous versions.
      If either KB3033929 or KB4474419 is detected on system, you can continue setup. If not (i.e. Windows Modules Installer service was off, so it couldn’t start the check), the message that those patches are missing will appear.

  3. Anonymous said on January 9, 2022 at 9:30 pm
    Reply

    Thank you for bringing back Windows 7 support. Windows 10 and 11 is horrible, I would never use them.

  4. Anonymous said on January 9, 2022 at 2:07 pm
    Reply

    I hope one day we find out what happened for TrueCrypt to abruptly ‘disappear’.

    1. I heart Windows 7 said on January 15, 2022 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Before I address your comment, let me say kudos to the VeryCrypt team for assisting the world with their great tool. VeryCrypt thankfully choose not to bend to MS’ greed.

      Now about the author of TrueCrypt (the “original” VeryCrypt). The guy responsible for TrueCrypts creation was put in prison, on unrelated charges. Though he was a criminal, he did do the world a solid by gifting us with one of the most outstanding pieces of privacy software ever constructed, TrueCrypt.

      That is why the gov’t took over his site, attempted to remove all traces of TrueCrypt from the net, and they gave corrupt advice to use MS shite locker instead. It is well knowwn that bitlocker uploads your private crypt keys to its cloud svc by default, this has been proven. bitlocker also bypasses its own encryption when SSDs are used; making decryption of your HDD simple to do and without a key, by simply tapping into the SSDs JTags. TrueCrypt otoh, has never been broken + it is heavily audited. It is still around, still stable, but has HDD size limitations so thus sometimes VeryCrypt is required.

      See this link for start of a multi-page story about the guy who ordered TrueCrypt to be built

      https://magazine.atavist.com/an-arrogant-way-of-killing/

      If impatient, by the third installment of the story, it gets heavily into TrueCrypt

      https://magazine.atavist.com/he-always-had-a-dark-side/

    2. beemeup5 said on January 9, 2022 at 8:28 pm
      Reply

      Rumor has it the lead developer was dying, so he decided to retire the project. It’s also entirely possible for humans to lose interest in something after a while. Nothing lasts forever.

  5. Anonymous said on January 9, 2022 at 1:46 pm
    Reply

    these dudes (https://www.osr.com/blog/2020/10/15/microsoft-driver-updates-allowed-win7-win8/) warned about m$ killing driver cross-signing on nt 6.x well in advance, but this is the first piece of software i’ve seen that’s been affected by it. although coincidentally, nvidia and amd unceremoniously went win10-exclusive around the time this happened in mid 2021 – i’m honestly surprised that microsoft’s toadies haven’t done more to bury anything older than win10, but these are the same people who want an enabled tpm chip in *every* pc while simultaneously providing ways to bypass said stupid tpm requirement, so…

    that being said, kudos to the veracrypt dev for working with other contributors to get this sorted out instead of mocking anyone who doesn’t use the Latest and Greatest™ version of winblows and simply refusing to help

  6. Martin P. said on January 9, 2022 at 1:31 pm
    Reply

    « VeraCrypt 1.25.7 update reintroduces support for Windows Vista, 7 and 8 »

    Excellent, yet unexpected news! Thanks for that Martin sine I would probably never have been aware of that.

  7. story submission said on January 9, 2022 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    Story Submission:

    January 8, 2022

    “Many readers were surprised to learn recently that the popular Norton 360 antivirus suite now ships with a program which lets customers make money mining virtual currency. But Norton 360 isn’t alone in this dubious endeavor: Avira antivirus — which has built a base of 500 million users worldwide largely by making the product free — was recently bought by the same company that owns Norton 360 and is introducing its customers to a service called Avira Crypto.

    Founded in 2006, Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational software company best known for their Avira Free Security (a.k.a. Avira Free Antivirus). In January 2021, Avira was acquired by Tempe, Ariz.-based NortonLifeLock Inc., the same company that now owns Norton 360.

    In 2017, the identity theft protection company LifeLock was acquired by Symantec Corp., which was renamed to NortonLifeLock in 2019. LifeLock is now included in the Norton 360 service; Avira offers users a similar service called Breach Monitor.

    Like Norton 360, Avira comes with a cryptominer already installed, but customers have to opt in to using the service that powers it. Avira’s FAQ on its cryptomining service is somewhat sparse. For example, it doesn’t specify how much NortonLifeLock gets out of the deal (NortonLifeLock keeps 15 percent of any cryptocurrency mined by Norton Crypto).

    “Avira Crypto allows you to use your computer’s idle time to mine the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH),” the FAQ explains. “Since cryptomining requires a high level of processing power, it is not suitable for users with an average computer. Even with compatible hardware, mining cryptocurrencies on your own can be less rewarding. Your best option is to join a mining pool that shares their computer power to improve their chance of mining cryptocurrency. The rewards are then distributed evenly to all members in the pool.”

    NortonLifeLock hasn’t yet responded to requests for comment, so it’s unclear whether Avira uses the same cryptomining code as Norton Crypto. But there are clues that suggest that’s the case. NortonLifeLock announced Avira Crypto in late October 2021, but multiple other antivirus products have flagged Avira’s installer as malicious or unsafe for including a cryptominer as far back as Sept. 9, 2021.

    The above screenshot was taken on Virustotal.com, a service owned by Google that scans submitted files against dozens of antivirus products. The detection report pictured was found by searching Virustotal for “ANvOptimusEnablementCuda,” a function included in the Norton Crypto mining component “Ncrypt.exe.”

    Some longtime Norton customers took to NortonLifeLock’s online forum to express horror at the prospect of their antivirus product installing coin-mining software, regardless of whether the mining service was turned off by default.

    “Norton should be DETECTING and killing off crypto mining hijacking, not installing their own,” reads a Dec. 28 thread on Norton’s forum titled “Absolutely furious.”

    Others have charged that the crypto offering will end up costing customers more in electricity bills than they can ever hope to gain from letting their antivirus mine ETH. What’s more, there are hefty fees involved in moving any ETH mined by Norton or Avira Crypto to an account that the user can cash out, and many users apparently don’t understand they can’t cash out until they at least earn enough ETH to cover the fees.

    In August 2021, NortonLifeLock said it had reached an agreement to acquire Avast, another longtime free antivirus product that also claims to have around 500 million users. It remains to be seen whether Avast Crypto will be the next brilliant offering from NortonLifeLock.

    As mentioned in this week’s story on Norton Crypto, I get that participation in these cryptomining schemes is voluntary, but much of that ultimately hinges on how these crypto programs are pitched and whether users really understand what they’re doing when they enable them. But what bugs me most is they will be introducing hundreds of millions of perhaps less savvy Internet users to the world of cryptocurrency, which comes with its own set of unique security and privacy challenges that require users to “level up” their personal security practices in fairly significant ways.”

    1. ULBoom said on January 9, 2022 at 7:03 pm
      Reply

      Norton Life Lock is mainly good for scaring those who watch TV early in the morning.

    2. Anonymous said on January 9, 2022 at 6:24 pm
      Reply

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