What does my installed .cer certificate not show in IIS?

Question

I was provided a .cer file for a certificate to install on my local machine. I have opened it, gone through the wizard to install it, and can not find it listed under Server Certificates in IIS. I even tried re-installing the .cer file and dictate the location of the cert store by placing it in Trusted Root Certification Authorities just to see if it would work, and it made no difference.

I know when I import .pfx files using IIS I've always had success with them being usable in IIS. How come my installed .cer certificate does not show in IIS even though the installation and import was a success?

Solution

You need to complete a certificate request in order to "install" it.

Go into server certification. Choose complete certificate request, select the certificate(.cer), and pretty much that's it.

Check http://www.digicert.com/ssl-certificate-installation-microsoft-iis-7.htm for exact procedure.

Comments

[atconway]

That was it! I didn't know I needed to complete the request and that's why it was not showing up in IIS.

[Gyula Kósa]

After completing the request also make sure that the local IIS_IUSRS has Read permission on the certificate.