Shaddy Baddah - 2016-01-11

This is a bit of a complicated issues which I will explain in the paragraphs that follow. But to get to the point, I've found that if you mount a VeraCrypt (or rather TrueCrypt in compatible mode, maybe that is the issue... we'll come back to that) drive which has User Profiles on it, then you encounter issues with the Windows 10 desktop.

This is a commonly discussed issue on forums, which is that the Start Button (and tray icon buttons), do not respond to clicking them. Now that sounds weird to be related to VeraCrypt, but let me describe my setup pre-upgrade to Windows 10, that worked fine.

So, I used to have C: drive system encrypted with TrueCrypt, Z: drive mounted as well using System Favorites or whatever you like, and M: as the only unencryted drive.

Using much a much documented technique around the UserProfiles registry key, I had certain users profiles stored on Z: drive. The problem with this setup for me is that if I worked remotely, and needed to force a reboot, I needed someone with physical access to key in the system encryption password. Fed up by that, I encrypted C: only, via bitlocker, and utilised TPM (as unsafe as it is claimed to be) to do away with a password prompt at the restart. C: drive only contained a few non-important user profiles so no big drama.

I would then be able to allow the pc to restart, login as the admin privileged user, use VeraCrypt to mount Z: manually, and then from then on I could switch user to the day-to-day users.

Now, after the upgrade, if I use, or create new profiles on Z:, they encounter the problem described. I know that it is related to this late mounted drive, because if I instead move or create profiles on M:, which is mounted on boot, then I do not encounter this problem.

It suggests that Windows 10 treats the later mounted drives somehow differently. Like maybe registered in some necessary service for the Start and tray icon buttons to work?

Now I know this is not strictly a VeraCrypt issue. But perhaps someone here has some technical knowledge that might give insight into why this is? Because quite franky, I'm getting desperate. Enough to contemplate unencrypting the drive, and reencrypting via Bitlocker.... I'd rather not though. I've used Truecrypt for a long time. I like how well it integrates with a dual-booted linux, and I've always favoured/advocated open source for the scrutinity of code it allows, amongst all the other benefits.

Can anyone help?