Signing ClickOnce with password protected PFX certificate

This time I had to find out how to make the TFS build step use a PFX certificate file to sign the ClickOnce manifest. It turned out to be quite a tricky task though.

Registering a certificate in the certificate store

This is another bit that will be helpful with our next tfs build script modification.

To use a certificate for either strong naming or signing code, you need to place it in the certificate store of the user asking for it (e.g. if you’re executing an automated build, the user in whose context the build is executed)

Creating a certificate signing request (csr) on windows

This bit will be useful for the next tfs build script modifications that I will describe in a later post.

Apparently there are a couple of ways to create a csr - openssl, online services, dedicated tools…

But there are also ways to create a csr without installing any software. There's the easy way (for those who have IIS installed) and the bit more complicated way (for those who like command line tools – that would be me)