Fixed: BitLocker is not Showing in Control Panel - Windows 10/8.1/7

"I want to encrypt my hard drive with BitLocker but I can't find BitLocker in Windows and BitLocker option is missing from control panel. How can I recover it in control panel?"

Launched by Microsoft, BitLocker is an encryption program that can encrypt data on a hard disk to prevent unauthorized access from anyone that doesn't have decryption key or credentials. For example, you can use BitLocker to encrypt internal hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, etc. However, it is sometimes occurred that BitLocker is not showing in control panel. Don't worry! This post will walk you through how to recover the missing BitLocker in control panel in different Windows versions including Windows 7, 8.1, 10.

First and foremost, what you need to do is to confirm the edition of Windows system. Actually, BitLocker is not available in all the Windows system. So, if your Windows system doesn't support BitLocker, it won't be shown in control panel. You can follow the ways below to check your Windows editions.

Windows 7: Click the Start button -> Type winver -> Press Enter

Windows 8.1: Right-click Start button -> click System

Windows 10: Click the Start button -> Settings -> System -> About

After knowing your Windows edition, please refer to the following chart to check whether it supports BitLocker or not.

If your Windows edition doesn't support BitLocker, the way out is to upgrade it to Windows edition that supports BitLocker.

If your Windows edition supports BitLocker but BitLocker is not showing in control panel, you can follow the detailed steps below to recover the missing BitLocker in control panel. It is available in Windows 7, 8.1, 10.

Step 1: Press Windows key + R to open a Run box. Then type services.msc and press Enter to launch Services window.

Step 2: Find out BitLocker Drive Encryption Service option in the right panel and then double-click it. On the popup window, click Start button.

Step 3: On the same window, select Automatic option in the drop-down menu of Startup type. Then click OK button to save the change and BitLocker Drive Encryption option will be found in the Windows again.