okay, this is what i wrote up... you might need to adapt it a bit to your OS, etc.
---------- DOWNLOAD
1. Go to
http://www.gpg4win.org/download.html2. Download Gpg4win 2.1.0 (Size: 38 MByte, Released 2011-03-15)
---------- INSTALLING
3. Run the download and follow the instructions in the installer.
4. Open "Kleopatra" (Should be now in your start menu).
5. In Kleopatra, choose File->New Certificate
6. Choose "Create a OpenPGP key pair"
7. Type your name and email address (These can be absolutely anything random, but name needs to be two words and email needs to be a valid email address. eg.
blah@blah.com).
8. Click Next
9. Click Create Key
10. Choose a password that you'll remember or keep somewhere safe, and enter it into the input box.
11. You should now have your first GPG key. This will have been saved somewhere on your computer under Users, but you can make a backup of the key to a USB or somewhere.
12. Click Finish.
----------- ENCRYPTING A MESSAGE
13. To encrypt a message, you'll need to choose who you're encrypting it for, and get a copy of their PUBLIC key. Eg. To send an encrypted message that only your brother can decrypt, you'll need to get a copy of your brother's PUBLIC key.
14. Once you have someone's public key, you can install it by clicking "Import Certificates" and browsing to the person's key file.
15. Open up Notepad and type the message that you want to encrypt.
16. Right click on your message in notepad and click "Select All" and then copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl-C).
17. In your system tray (near the clock on the task bar), there's an icon for Kleopatra. Right click on it and choose Clipboard->Encrypt.
18. Choose "Add recipient"
19. Select the key of the recipient (eg. your brother) It might be under the "Other Certificates" tab. Then click OK.
20. You will get a warning that says you have not selected your own certificate. This just means that you won't be able to decrypt your message (only the recipient will be able to).
21. Click Next, then OK. This should encrypt the contents of the windows clipboard.
22. Go back to notepad where you typed your message. If it's not still all selected, do Select All (Usually Ctrl-A). Then do a paste (Ctrl-V).
33. Now, email this encrypted text to your intended recipient and he will be able to decrypt it and read the original message.
----------- DECRYPTING A MESSAGE
34. For others to be able to send you encrypted messages, you will need to give them a copy of your PUBLIC key.
35. In Kleopatra, click on your certificate and choose Export Certificates. Save somewhere as whatever name you like, eg. mypublickey.asc
36. Send that mypublickey.asc to whoever you would like. It is safe to publish it anywhere at all, since the only thing people will be able to do with it is encrypt a message that only you can read.
37. Once someone sends you a message that has been encrypted with your key, select the encrypted message and copy it to the windows clipboard.
38. On the Kleopatra icon in the system tray, choose Clipboard->Decrypt/Verify
39. Go to notepad and click paste, or Ctrl-V, you should now be able to see the decrypted message.
^ the above may contain security holes, do your own research.
