Managing Certificates in the Microsoft Certificate Stores

In order to connect secure sessions using the Microsoft CryptoAPI (MSCAPI) security package, the appropriate certificates must exist in the Microsoft Certificate Stores. To connect to a secure host, the root certificate of the host certificate's verification chain must be in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. To connect a secure client authentication session, the client certificate must be in the Personal store.

To add, remove, and view certificates in the Microsoft Certificate Stores, select Internet Options in the Windows Control Panel. On the Content tab, click Certificates. The tabs represent the different Microsoft Certificates Stores. Each tab shows the certificates that exist within each store.

To add a certificate to a store, click Import; the Certificate Import wizard helps you import certificates from a file. The Import wizard can import certificates from several types of certificate files, including the ARM, DER, and P12 formats that can be extracted or exported from the Certificate Management utility.