I've encrypted and excel file containing confidential information, i am the administrator of the laptop, i've change my password yesterday and this morning when i attempted to open up that excel file, can no longer be able to access the file, i've made sure that i have full control on the file. I've heard that you need a recovery agent to decrypt the file. I've tried to add a recovery agent from /admin tool/local security policy/public key policies/Encrypting file system as there is no policy defined, run the wizard but when i get to "select recovery agent" and hit the button browse folder to find a certificate file .cer, but haven't got a clue where to browse that .cer file for the certificate so i'm stuck. I then log on as the built in administrator as i guess this account has all the power to recover and encrypted file but was again disappointed, the security tab on the file can clearly confirm that the administrator has the FULL CONTROL access on the file but still, the administrator can NOT open up the file, access denied blah d blah....On the IE/tools/internet options/content tab/certificates, I can see my certificate in there , if you click "export" button and follow the export wizard, you will get to the point that the wizard can't see the private key and "NOTED:the associated private key cannot be found.Only the certificate can be exported"
-YES, EXPORT THE PRIVATE KEY is grayed out so you can't select that, "NO - do not export the private key" is the only available options...

If there's someone out there who have got a clue what i am talking about, please reply back into this post and any input will be greatly appreciated. thanks

Try changeing your password back to the what it was when you saved the file. If you can read it save it with out encription, change your password and then reencript file.

I've changed it back to my original password and it work so, that's just the only way to recover EFS, it work, brilliant,, thanks a lot for that, only problem with this solution is that - what if I can't remember my old password???, well, I guess that's how EFS is all about isn't it?, if it isn't that secured, why bother implementing it? thanks all the same!!!