Importing Email Signing Certificate – Windows

Introduction

Before a personal email signing certificate can be used by an email program, it must be installed in the operating system’s certificate manager. For Windows 7, this is the Certificate Store.

NOTE: Before beginning the process in this documentation, a request for a signing certificate must be completed.

 

Installing an email signing certificate in Windows 7

  1. Go to your system’s default download location. You should see a file with the name “yourNetID_at_domain” that matches the email address for which you requested a signing certificate. Double-click this file.
  1. This will open the “Certificate Import Wizard”. Click Next.
  2. The wizard will ask you to specify the file you want to import. The location of the file should be automatically entered in the File name: blank. If it is not, click on Browse... and choose the file manually. Click Next.
  3. The import wizard will now ask for the password for your certificate. This is the password displayed to you after completing the Email Signing Certificate Requests process. In the check boxes below, make sure that "Enable strong private key protection" is unchecked. Otherwise, you will be prompted every time your email client tries to use your signing certificate. Make sure to place a check mark next to "Mark this key as exportable" so that you can create a backup of your certificate or transport it to a new computer in the future. Make sure that "Include all extended properties" is checked as well. Click Next.
  4. The next screen will ask where you want to store your certificate. Leave "Automatically select the certificate store based on the type of certificate" selected. Click Next.
  5. You will now see a summary of the Certificate Import Wizard's tasks, including the selected certificate store, the content type of the certificate, and the file name and path of the certificate you are importing. Click Next.
  6. The Certificate Import Wizard will now import the certificate into the appropriate certificate store and display an import successful message.   
  7. Your personal email signing certificate will now be available for you to use with your preferred email client.

 

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