Importing a User Certificate to the Windows Certificate Store

To import a user certificate and private key into the Windows Certificate Store, it’s easiest if you have them packaged together in PKCS12 format (.pfx or .p12). OpenSSL can combine a separate certificate (usercert.pem or usercert.cer) and private key file (userkey.pem) into PKCS12 format using the pkcs12 command:

openssl pkcs12 -export -out usercert.p12 -in usercert.pem -inkey userkey.pem

Once you have your certificate in PKCS12 format (for example usercert.p12) launch the Certificate Import Wizard by simply double-clicking the .p12 or .pfx file in Windows Explorer.

The Certificate Import Wizard will walk you through the process of adding the selected certificate file to the Windows Certificate Store. For the most part you can accept the default options in the wizard; however, for the certificate to work with GridFTP.NET, you MUST check the Mark this key as exportable checkbox in the wizard.