How to install CertUtil to Windows 7?

Question

It seems that my version of Windows 7 (SP1, with PowerShell 4) lacks the certutil command. I tried to look for a way to add it manually but failed. Any ideas on how to do it?

UPDATE

Thanks to comments, I was able to locate the certutil.exe file in \System32\ but I can't execute any certutil command.

Here's a snapshot I have:

Solution

When a program cannot be found when you can see that executable in file managers then it's usually because you're running a 32-bit shell, because 32-bit processes are put under file system redirector and System32 is actually SysWOW64. Some related questions:

• Why can't I launch telnet.exe from a Windows 8 command prompt?
• query.exe can't be found
• Strange CMD errors only when CMD is opened from my program
• GNU Make on Windows cannot see some executables

In that case %windir%\Sysnative\certutil will work, although the better way would be running a 64-bit shell instead

However it seems that's not your situation because you can see certutil.exe in System32. So there are 2 possibilities:

• Your PATH environment variable is broken so certutil.exe can't be found. %windir%\System32 must always be in PATH. Here's an example on my PC:

  PS C:\Users> $env:Path -replace ';', "`n"
  C:\WINDOWS\system32
  C:\WINDOWS
  C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
  C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
  C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH\
  C:\Program Files\dotnet\
  C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps
  C:\Users\user\.dotnet\tools
  

  Unlike cmd, PowerShell looks for the file in PATH first for security reasons, like POSIX shells. So even if you're inside %windir%\System32 it still won't run that exe file and you need to use .\certutil instead.

• Your PATHEXT environment variable is broken. It's the extensions that the shell will look for when you type a command without extension and contains COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.CPL by default. If there's no .exe in it then your file couldn't be found. You need to run certutil.exe explicitly

Either way, your system might be broken in some way and you need to run sfc /scannow to fix the system files and environment

Comments

[magicandre1981]

Which Win7 edition do you use? Home Premium or Pro/Ultimate? Maybe the Home misses it.

[ahmed]

Actually it's the Ultimate 'distro' of Windows 7.

[DavidPostill]

Windows 7 Home Premium has it: C:\Windows\System32\certutil.exe

[magicandre1981]

I checked my Win7 ultimate VM and also has the file: "C:\Windows\System32\certutil.exe"

[ahmed]

Thanks for your comments. I updated the question with more details.

[magicandre1981]

run it from a normal cmd.exe and not Powershell

[DavidPostill]

It works here without using .\

[Wil]

ty for the PATHEXT hint - for decades I've wanted control over that but thought it was hard-coded.