An internal error occurred. the private key that you are importing might require a cryptographic service provider that is not installed on your system

Question

When I compile my application , I get following compile error.

Unable to find manifest signing certificate in the certificate store.

Then I find the resolution for the above error and then try to import certificate, I am getting following error.

An internal error occurred. the private key that you are importing might require a cryptographic service provider that is not installed on your system.

I also check the folder option of MachineKeys in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA

Answer 1

In the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA, make sure you have no zero-length files. Delete any you find.

Answer 2

I've solved this problem by importing the PFX certificate in Firefox and export it using the same key.

The new file will have the .p12 extension and will import ok into USER store with just a double-click.

Answer 3

In our case, client certificates were issued for server authentication purpose instead of client authentication purpose. Instead of having purpose to prove your identity to a remote computer

client certificates have purpose to ensure the identity of a remote computer

Certificate's property "Enhanced Key Usage" was "Server Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.1)", instead of "Client Authentication (1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2)"

Answer 4

I was running into this issue exporting a certificate with mmc and trying to import it into the personal store. None of the other solutions were working for me, neither was anything on the Microsoft page about the error message. What ultimately resolved it for me was switching the export over to not exporting the private key.