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I've installed several self-signed certificates on my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine for development purposes. One was installed into Trusted Root CAs and 2 were installed into My Certificates and Trusted People. Every day or two the certificate installed into Trusted Root CAs disappears and I have to re-install it! This is annoying the hell out of me. Why is it happening and how do I stop it?

The other certificates (installed into other stores) do not disappear. My first thought was some kind of Group Policy, but my machine is not part of a domain - though it does obtains its IP address from a corporate DHCP server, so I'm not sure if they can somehow still manage to apply Group Policy to me.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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"Root" store solved it

The solution was to install it into the Root store, which puts it under Registry (if you view physical stores in the Certificates snap-in), instead of the AuthRoot store, which puts it under Third-Party. I don't know why it was disappearing from Third-Party, but it hasn't happened since I made this change.

Thanks to Charlie Wilson for pointing me in the right direction. I just wanted to type out the full answer in case anyone else had this problem.

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  • Thanks! I thought I was going crazy after the third time my certificates went missing.
    – user53122
    Commented Dec 19, 2013 at 10:58
  • This should be marked as the accepted solution
    – Daniel
    Commented Oct 6, 2019 at 12:47
  • Its always something with Microsoft, never straightforward. Thank you.
    – Mike Cheel
    Commented Mar 25, 2022 at 19:04
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When you choose where the certificates should be stored are you choosing a physical store such as Registry or Local Computer? I am not sure what the problem is but I have always been successful with choosing Registry. Good luck.

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  • Interesting thought... The one that disappears is under "Third Party", while most are under "Registry". I might try installing it under "Registry" and see if that helps.
    – EMP
    Commented Dec 15, 2010 at 21:42

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