• Tiny installer (474 Kb), digitally signed by NCH Software.
• Installation is super-fast but asks to install unnecessary softwares during the process. It is recommended to uncheck all the options like as shown in the image.

Recommended Installation Type

• At the end of installation it asks for a reboot for context menus to work properly. It is to be noted that in my Windows 7 32 bit the software everything worked properly even without a reboot while in 64 bit context menus didn’t work even after a reboot.
• In the homepage the software is said to be compatible with Windows 7, XP and Vista & Mac OS X 10.3 and above. But I found that the compatibility with Windows 7 64 bit is still incomplete.
• The software is not multilingual.
• The software creates desktop shortcut, context menu entry automatically and shows splash screen on launch.

Desktop Icon

Context Menu Entry

• The GUI is easy to use.

•  The software uses two types of encryption algorithm.

• The software can compress files (.zip) before encrypting. For that it automatically downloads and installs “infozip2”. You can exclude some file extensions from compressing (like which are already compressed zip, rar, 7zip etc).
• By default it asks for output folder while encrypting or decrypting. But you can specify to encrypt/decrypt in the same folder as the original file or to use a specific folder for this purpose.

Options

• For encrypting email, you need to specify email settings. You can also send a test email using that settings.

Email Settings

• The software has an additional tool to validate and create hashes of a file. For validation it uses MD5, SHA-1 and Tiger Tree while it can create only MD5 hash.

Hash Validation

Hash Calculation

• Encrypting can be done either from the GUI or from the context menu. You can select multiple files and even folders at once to encrypt but it always forms a single encrypted archive. If you need to set separate encrypted files with different password you need to do the encryption separately.
• The software does not support drag and drop.
• The encrypted files will get .meo extension. So, to decrypt any files encrypted with this software you need to have MEO Encryption installed in that PC.
• You can also create Self-Decrypting file. It will have the extension .exe and so the encrypted file can be decrypted even without the software installed.

Encryption wizard: Select files and folders

Encryption wizard: Specify File-name, Method and other Customization

Encryption wizard: Add Password

• As told earlier you can also encrypt emails.

Encrypting Emails

• The software is light on resources while only the GUI is open or you are doing some customizations but during encryption or decryption it uses moderate resources.

While the GUI is open or you are doing some customization

While it is doing encryption or decryption

• There is an offline html help file that opens in your default browser.
• The software has an option to manually check for updates.
• It can repair installation and during uninstallation it asks for optional feedback. It has minimal leftover after uninstallation.

My Verdict
The software is easy to use and has many positive features. Two things can be improved:
1. Context Menu support for Windows 7 64 bit.
2. Other language support.
You can post you feedbacks about the software in the following page
http://www.nch.com.au/suggestions/index.html
Download
Although the review is based on Windows version there is also a Macintosh version available for the software.
For Windows
http://www.nchsoftware.com/encrypt/meosetup.exe
For Mac OS X (Intel)
http://www.nchsoftware.com/encrypt/meomaci.zip
For Mac OS X (PPC)
http://www.nchsoftware.com/encrypt/meomac.zip

Cheers !!