MS help (premium access) never answered the phone, so I put in a call
record via the Web, but I'm not holding my breath I'll get an answer
anytime soon. <g>
In the meantime, with deadlines already expired, I researched more on
my own. I built certificates using Selfcert where I included the "&" in
the name trying to grasp a pattern or logic to all this. Invariably the
name was truncated by the MS Office Security dialog box. (That's the
dialog box all Office files pop up when a macro is in the file being
opened. If a certificate is assigned to the macro, which MS recommends,
then the name of the developer/company is displayed and the user can
choose to trust the source and never be bothered again with the
warning. My point is this is a very commonly viewed dialog box, so the
problem is not obscure.)
And it's not a fluke. Anyone can see this for themselves. It's very
reproducable and only takes a few seconds to set up:
1) Launch Selfcert.exe (In the Office folders).
2) When prompted, set the certificate name to anything an "&".
("Beavis & Butthead")
3) Finish the certificate.
4) In ANY MS Office program make sure macro security is set to Medium
or higher (Tools > Macro > Security).
5) Start a new document and make a simple macro (recording one is
fine).
6) In the VBE sign the certificate to the macro (Tools > Digital
Signature).
7) Save the document, close it, then re-open it.
8) The Office security dialog box appears asking to enable macros with
a checkbox asking to trust the source in the future.
9) STOP and look at the name of the certificate source at the top of
the dialog box. Instead of "Beavis & Butthead", it shows only, "Beavis
&". OOPS!
Further testing showed that if I add a space and a punctuation to the
end of my certificate name when setting it up, the whole name magically
appears in the dialog box. It seems the "&" cuts off text like a
delimiter, then the space+punctuation restores it. Go figure.
See if for yourself. Using the steps above, make a new certificate but
make the name "Beavis & Butthead -" (note the spaces). In the dialog
box the name now displays correctly. The caveat is the technical
properties of the certificate display "Beavis & Butthead -". But that's
better than the first scenario. Most users won't look at that anyway.
It sounds funky, but at least I found a workaround. The only outcome
from Verisign and MS pointing fingers at each other is that I lost lots
of money and time. I'm happy I found a solution so I can move on past
this problem.
So, there you have it. I hope this helps someone in the future so they
don't have to go through the frustrations I had to deal with proving to
these large corporations I'm not insane and that I didn't create the
problem as they tried insinuating.
I'm all ears if anyone has other thoughts on this.
Thanks,
Chuck
