cannot open digitally signed message - Outlook 2003

[Andi]

I have a user (running Outlook 2003 sp3 on Windows XP sp3). He has received
a couple of emails lately that contain digital signatures. Problem is, he
can't read or open the messages, either in the Reading Pane or by trying to
open them. He gets the error "unable to open this item due to an unspecified
error".

On a different machine, the messages open up just fine, which tells me
there's something wonky going on with this particular system. I tried
running Outlook in safe mode (no good). I tried repairing the installation
(no good). I tried exporting the cert on the signature from the machine it
does work on, and importing it to the machine that can't open it (no good).

Has anybody else run in to this before? How is it fixed (other than
completely rebuilding the machine)??

thanks,

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

I have a user (running Outlook 2003 sp3 on Windows XP sp3). He has received
a couple of emails lately that contain digital signatures. Problem is, he
can't read or open the messages, either in the Reading Pane or by trying to
open them. He gets the error "unable to open this item due to an
unspecified
error".

While I use certificates extensively and configure systems and people to use
them as well, when the crypto system in Windows fails, there's not a lot of
help available. Microsoft doesn't have any places that I've found that
explain a lot of how the crypto subsystem works. I'd start here:
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/xpsecurity/threads