How to suspend BitLocker using Command Prompt
Alternatively, you can also use Command Prompt to disable BitLocker on Windows 10 temporarily using these steps:
Open Start.
Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
Type the following command to identify the drive that you want to suspend BitLocker and press Enter: Manage-bde –Protectors –Disable C: -RebootCount 1 In the command, the -RebootCount allows you to specify how many times your computer can restart before BitLocker will re-enable automatically. You can use values 0 through 15, while zero suspends BitLocker until you resume the protection manually.
Once you complete these steps, your computer will temporarily stay without encryption protection to perform system changes.
Resuming BitLocker using Command Prompt
After applying the system changes, you can re-enable the BitLocker protection with Command Prompt using these steps:
Open Start.
Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
Type the following command to resume BitLocker and press Enter: Manage-bde –Protectors -Enable C:
After you complete the steps, BitLocker will resume to keep the system drive fully encrypted.
While we’re showing you multiple ways to suspend BitLocker on Windows 10, the command options using PowerShell and Command Prompt are the only methods that let you pause encryption indefinitely.
Also, this guide is focused on Windows 10, but these instructions should also work on Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.