Manually set a certificate to archived status in Windows

In this post, I describe how to manually set a certificate to the status "Archived" in Microsoft Windows.

Screenshot of an archived certificate in the Certificate Management Console

Usually, when renewing certificates, old ones get archived automatically.  However, you may want to manually set a certificate to the Archived status e.g. for testing purposes.


Resolution

To manually set a certificate to Archived:

1. Open a command prompt as Administrator

2. Run certutil -store my to view the certificates in the Personal (my) store:

Screenshot of certutil -store my in a command prompt

3. Make a note of the Cert Hash(sha1) of the certificate you want to archive

4. Create a new file called archive.inf and insert the following text:

[Properties]

19 = Empty

Screenshot of archive.inf in Notepad

This file is used to archive the certificate.

5. Save archive.inf e.g. to c:\

6. In the command prompt, change directory to where you saved archive.inf e.g. cd c:\

7. Run certutil -repairstore my "9a0bf9cfc3c9573121fa38fea3360ba7572a78e5" Archive.inf replacing 9a0bf9cfc3c9573121fa38fea3360ba7572a78e5 with the Cert Hash(sha1) noted earlier.

Screenshot of certuil -repairstore in a command prompt

The certificate is now Archived!


View archived certificates in MMC

To view archived certificates in MMC:

1. Left click the Certificates node then right click and go to View then Options:

Screenshot of Certificates Management Console

2. Check the Archived certificates checkbox:

Screenshot of Archived certificates checkbox in View Options window

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