FYI: I decided to find the answer myself by taking advantage of the fact that I still have my old computer on which I recently brought up a test version of Windows 8.1. I downloaded and installed the latest *gpg4win* onto that system and checked it out. It looks good! I exported my public and private keys from the old gnugpg and then imported them into *gpg4win*; everything works as it should. As for a GUI interface to replace GPGShell, *gpg4win* comes with its own, reasonably rich, interface, as well as integration into Windows Explorer.
So, I upgraded to *gpg4win* on my new Windows 8.1 system and pointed Enigmail to the new GnuPG. It appears to work as it should. Mike On 2015-03-20 19:28, Mike Friedman wrote: > I'm posting this here because my attempts to get a definitive answer > in all the "appropriate" places seem hopeless. > > On my Windows 8.1 PC I've been running gnupg for Windows, release > 1.4.19, along with GPGShell that supports it. This works fine, but > now I'm told by Thunderbird that my Enigmail add-on soon will support > only GnuPG 2.x and that I must therefore upgrade my version of gpg. > > Here's my question: can I replace gnupg 1.4.19 with GnuPG 2.4 > (actually *gpg4win*) and continue to use my existing keys (of which I > have a lot)? (That is, are the pubkey and seckey files compatible and > kept in the same place)? Also, I have important files that are > encrypted in my own key and I want to keep that key as my default. (I > don't want to be forced to generate new keys after the upgrade). > > Unfortunately, I suspect (but don't know for sure) that GPGshell > doesn't support GnuPG 2.x, so my other question is whether there is a > front end GUI for *gpg4win* that would replace it. Some documentation > I found at the GnuPG site says that one shouldn't install *gpg4win* > without first un-installing gnupg 1.4.x, so I see no easy way for me > even to find my answers by trial and error. I really don't want to > lose my keys inadvertently by playing around with this too much. > > I'd appreciate an answer from someone who has actually moved from > Windows gnupgp 1.4.x to GnuPG 2.x and continued to use existing keys > and encrypted files. Or, if you can point me to documentation that > addresses this issue explicitly, that would be good too. > > Thanks. > > Mike > -- > Mike Friedman > [email protected] > http://mikefberkeley.com > -- Mike Friedman [email protected] http://mikefberkeley.com
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