Installing a certificate for IE7 in Windows Vista
Posted by kyle on February 26th, 2007 filed in Vista Tips 'n TricksA couple of the sites that I interact with have their own issued Certs for SSL in IE. Previously in Windows XP I was given a popup that warned me of issues with the Cert and I was given the option to install this on my own if I deemed it trustworthy.
In Windows Vista with IE7 I do not get given that choice. Instead I get the warning page and a Continue (Not Recommended) option with the address bar in Red. Now, I trust this site – in one particular case it is one of my own sites running SBS 2003 – with a cert that I created. So what to do to make my life easier? If I run IE normally and click on the red shield on the Address bar I dont get any options to do anything with the Cert except to view it.
Answer? Run IE as Administrator (now – I don’t for a second recommend that you do that for every time you surf the web – only for this purpose and then close IE down and restart it as a standard user). Once you have IE open in Admin Mode (after you have accepted the UAC notifications) – navigate to the site that has the cert that is not accepted.
Once you are at the warning page – click on continue, then at the target page, click on the red sheild in the address bar, select View Certificates - now you will have an option to install the certificate.
Warning – only ever do this with sites that you trust and then once installed close down IE and restart it in standard user mode – do I have to say it again? 
Cheers
Kyle
August 17th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Hi Vista PC Guy,
Thanks for the advice, however, my problem is somewhat different and I wonder if you cant perhaps assist me with this. I also created a certificate and the cert is now available to users. Users running XP can install the cert without a problem, but my Vista users get a little box saying Downloading ActiveX control….
The box stays there forever and nothing happens. I even set the Internet security to the lowest possible setting but to no avail.
What do you think might solve the problem?
Best regards
September 20th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Thank you for this…very helpful!
December 30th, 2007 at 9:20 am
They should of setup a personal Certs installation so that you don’t have to be admin to install the a Certs. A User should be able to install Certs just for themselves and Administrators are the only ones that can install Certs system wide! Lack of thought on Microsoft’s Part! In Vista Users don’t even have proper access to their profile, unlike in Linux and Mac OS X. Users and make changes to any part of their profile just no the system! When will Microsoft learn that that Idea has been around for years and works perfectly fine?
January 31st, 2008 at 3:18 am
Thank you for helping
March 25th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Very helpful, thanks alot,
Helped me reslove this problem on VISTA… couldnt figure how to get to the install part…
the funny thing about it that the user i tryed to install it with is an administrator…
only when i made it run as… administrator the install button showed up…
Thanks again
igal
February 9th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Hey Mike,
Both OSX and Linux market share sucks because only MS develop operating systems people want to use at a reasonable price.
With Windows 7, looks like MS is going to be top dog for another few years. Maybe you should get with the program.
March 29th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Thanks for the helpful post.
In my case, I also had to select a certificate store, not let the wizard decide where to store it. Seems the wizard may default the store to ‘Personal Certificates’ so when you log back in (not as administrator) the cert. can’t be seen.
May 26th, 2009 at 12:22 am
thanks philr for adding the extra part on changing the defaut store folder.
August 30th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Thanks, that was very useful. Still getting used to the admin mode in Vista.