Summary: Windows GUI recommendation for USB disk

[Robert Eden]

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

I was looking for a simple exe-only tool I could put on a USB disk to make it very easy for Windows users to encrypt files with a symmetric key.

Quite a few folks suggested GPGshell.  It was a good choice, but had one problem... when it encrypts files it follows the GPG pattern of putting the new file in the same location of the old.  If I used that, I'd be afraid users would copy the files to the USB drive and encrypt it there.  Even if they deleted the file, it would have to be followed by an erase tool, which needs to be installed.... too much trouble.  It also did more than symmetric keys, which may confuse my users.. 

I also learned that 7-zip now supports hard encryption.  A *great* idea.  We already use 7-zip internally, and that was actually my problem with it.  If folk were already used to using 7-zip, I bet they wouldn't bother to check the "encrypt" button.

So, I ended up writing my own tool in with wxGlade and WxPerl.  I didn't know such a GUI tool existed for Perl!  I've been programing perl for years... I did one TK project, and really didn't want to go down that path... wxGlade and wxPerl made it pretty painless, once I learned the tools.  I'm sure I'll make use of it again.

My tool prompts the user for a pass-phrase (twice), places some simple restrictions on the pass-phrase (10 characters, 3 words), and opens up a dialog box.  The user then drags files/directories using explorer to the dialog box, which lists the files and starts gpg to encrypt them. (runs two encryption threads at once).  Files are stored in the same directory as the executable.

If someone wants a copy let me know and  I'll look into releasing it. 

Robert

----- Original Message ----
From: Robert Eden <rmeden at yahoo.com>
To: gnupg-users at gnupg.org
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 2:02:32 PM
Subject: Windows GUI recommendation for USB disk

I'd like to place a static windows GUI executable on a USB disk to

encourage folks to encrypt data while using snail-mail.



I don't want windows shell extensions as that would require an installer

(WinPT ).



I'm thinking just a single EXE that provides a simple GUI and supports

symmetric keys...



I don't know if GPA does this, I've been having trouble getting it to

compile on my cygwin install. (The README talks about a pre-built

binary, but it doesn't exist)



Any recommendations?



Robert







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