How to Enable Vista's Bitlocker Encryption without a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip

If your computer is like mine you probably don't have a TPM chip embedded on the motherboard, and if you have tried to enable that neat little security encryption feature that's the main selling point of Vista Ultimate and Enterprise you have already realized that without the Trusted Platform Module chip- you can't. But there is a quick and easy solution that will disable the TPM requirement, and allow you to use Bitlocker with a usb thumb drive instead.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• USB thumb drive
• minimum 256 MB

1. Click on the Start button, and in the Search bar where you see the little magnifying glass type:
   gpedit.msc
2. Click on "gpedit" and it will open the Group Policy Object Editor
3. scroll down to Local Computer Policy->Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->Windows Components->BitLocker Drive Encryption.
4. In the right-hand pane, double-click on Control Panel Setup: Enable advanced startup options.
5. In dialog that appears, enable this option, then press OK and close the Group Policy Object Editor.
   "Enable Bitlocker without a compatable TPM"
6. Click Start->All Programs->Acessories Folder->System Tools->Bitlocker Folder->Bitlocker Drive Preparation Tool( if you do not have this tool navigate to Windows Update and click "check for updates" to download Windows Ultimate Extras)
7. The Drive Preparation Tool will create a partition sufficient in size to enable Bitlocker (if one does not already exist) and then will walk you through the steps to enable Bitlocker Encryption using a usb drive.