Visual Studio SignTool.exe Not Found

153
votes

I have completed an application I have made in Visual Studio 14.0, but when I tried to publish the program, I get an error as Visual Studio cannot find 'SignTool.exe'. I have searched my Hard drive a few times for this but it is nowhere on my PC. Can anyone help me find it or download it?

8
publishsigntool

8 Answers

203
votes

I had the same issue but installing the Windows 8.1 SDK as per Catquatwa's answer did not work for me (signtool.exe was still missing from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\vX\Bin).

I stumbled across this solution: http://www.benedykt.net/2015/08/12/missing-signtool-exe-w-visual-studio-2015/

Basically, for VS 2015, this would be:

  • Open Programs and Features
  • Select "Microsoft Visual Studio 2015" and click "Change"
  • Press "Modify" to progress to Features options
  • Select "Windows and Web Development", then tick "ClickOnce Publishing Tools" for installation
  • Then "Next" and then "Update"
112
votes

I have a windows 7 and installing the ClickOnce Tools was not enough.

The signtool.exe appeared after also installing the sdk:

selection in vs 2015

97
votes

If you do not care about sign your program when you publish, just right click your project then choose Properties --> Signing --> un-check Sign the ClickOnce manifest . I had the same issue when building my program on another machine which did not have ClickOne.

61
votes

The SignTool is available as part of the Windows SDK (which comes with Visual Studio Community 2015). Make sure to select the "ClickOnce Publishing Tools" from the feature list during the installation of Visual Studio 2015 to get the SignTool.

Once Visual Studio is installed you can run the signtool command from the Visual Studio Command Prompt. By default (on Windows 10) the SignTool will be installed at C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x86\signtool.exe.

ClickOnce Publishing Tools Installation:

enter image description here

SignTool Location:

enter image description here

11
votes

1.Just Disable signing from the properties of your project it will solve issue :)
2.The other method is to purchase the certificate for your product from Digicert or Comodo or any other you want. You can get some free certificates for One pc use.

10
votes

No Worries! I have found the solution! I just installed https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/bg162891.aspx and it all worked fine :)

6
votes

Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows 8.1

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=323507

Right click on Project, select properties and Un-Check the sign on option in teh project save and re-built.

This has fixed issue for me.

1
votes

Here is a solution for Visual Studio 2017. The installer looks a littlebit different from the VS 2015 version and the name of the installation packages are different.