I transfer files from old hard drives for people pretty often. Can someone explain to me the following:

If I connect a drive that had Vista or 7 on it to another Vista or 7 computer (or, I think, if I connect an XP drive to an XP machine), I'm denied access to the user folder.

However, every time I've connected a drive that had XP on it to a Vista or 7 computer, I'll open the user's folder, get a brief message saying it's protected or something, and then the system works for a little bit and voilà, I have access to the folder and all unencrypted files within.


By the way, isn't there a tool that you can throw on a Linux live CD that will crack an XP password? That might help Doug in this process, and you'd have access to everything...