4UOnly

Frequently Asked Questions

What encryption methods are used?

We use the RC4 encryption algorithm built-in to your operating system. Standard encryption uses 56 bit keys. Enhanced encryption uses 128 bit keys. We recommend that you use enhanced encryption if that choice is available on your system and portability is not an issue. Be aware, however, that not all versions of Windows support enhanced encryption, and that a password list encrypted using enhanced encryption will not be accessible on a system that does not support it.

My windows account was deleted and recreated and now I can't view my password list!

This is why it is critical that you specify a password the first time you save a 4UOnly password file. When a Windows user account it is created, it is assigned a unique secret security fingerprint. That fingerprint will never be the same regardless of whether the account is recreated with the same userid. 4UOnly needs this fingerprint to decrypt your password file. If that fails it will resort to using the password you provided.

I have lost the password to my password list. Can you help me recover my password list?

One of the requirements of strong security is that only the owner of a resource controls access to it. We are no more capable of decrypting your password list than anybody else. Please make sure that you do not lose your 4UOnly password list master password.

4UOnly complains of "unexpected file format" when I try and access my password file - what could be the problem?

Couple of reasons this could happen, all related to some change occurring in your account setup. Are you trying to open the file under an account that is different from the one used when it was created? Are you trying to open the file on a different computer? Was your account deleted and recreated? In all of these cases the security token of your Windows account has changed and the only way to open the file is to provide the master password specified when it was created.

My password list file is all of a sudden asking for a password before it will open (it has never asked for one before). I don't have a password. How do I get around this?

This can happen if you are trying to access you passwords from a Windows account different from the one under which it was created. In this circumstance the only way to decrypt and access your password is to provide the master password. This is why it is so important to specify a master password when you first create your password list. If you do not have the master password then your passwords are lost! We are no more able to decrypt the file for you than anybody else.

If your question was not answered here, please check the General FAQ webpage.