Certificates broken

[Brian Tillman]

I have WIndows XP Pro SP2. A couple of weeks ago, when I logged in, my
computer complained that my profile was damaged and created a new one when I
logged in (it created C:\Documents and Settings\MyName.000, where "MyName"
is my Windows login.). Naturally, nothing was defined for my settings as I
wanted it to be. So, I logged in as Administrator and copied the contents
of C:\Documents and Settings\MyName to the new profile. Along the way, an
error occurred copying two of the files in C:\Documsnts and
Settings\MyName\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto. The error was that the
name was too long and I needed to create a shorter name. Puzzled as to how
a file with a too-long name could have been created in the first place, I
proceeded to copy all but the too-long named files. I then got rid of the
old profile folder.

Everything seemed to be working correctly until I needed to access a site
that required one of my certificates! Little did I realize that my private
cert keys are kept in that folder. Now I can't use the site and
reinstalling the certificate doesn't help.

Does anyone know how to reset things so that I can reinstall my
certificates?

 

[Shreeniwas Kelkar [MSFT]]

How did you "get rid" of the old profile folder? Had you backed up your keys
perviously? How did you reinstall the certificate? If there is no backup and
the no way to undo the delete (recover from trash can, etc.), the keys may
be gone for good.

 

[Brian Tillman]

How did you "get rid" of the old profile folder?

I just renamed it.

Had you backed up your keys perviously?
No.

How did you reinstall the certificate?

Right-click>Install Certificate. However, even though the wizard says it
completed the installation correctly, the certificate doesn't appear in IE.

If there
is no backup and the no way to undo the delete (recover from trash
can, etc.), the keys may be gone for good.

Oh, I have the key files. They just won't install. The Crypto and Protect
folders seem to be broken. I also think I lost some of the original root
certificates.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Everything seemed to be working correctly until I needed to access a
site that required one of my certificates! Little did I realize that
my private cert keys are kept in that folder. Now I can't use the
site and reinstalling the certificate doesn't help.

Does anyone know how to reset things so that I can reinstall my
certificates?

Well, I may have solved my own problem. I blew away my old Windows profile
and created a new one. That didn't fix my certificate problem, so I decided
to do an end-around. I installed FireFox and loaded my certificate into it.
That, naturally, worked. Lastly, I exported the cert from FireFox and
imported it into IE. This time, it worked and my cert appeared in IE.
Strange, when an import of the original cert didn't take.