Deploy VSTO Add-In Without Signing Certificate?

Question

This is my first time trying to deploy a VSTO add-in to a user's system, and I am running into a security barrier. The add-in was built in Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition and is meant to integrate with Microsoft Excel. The user runs Office 365.

On running Setup.exe, user receives the initial confirmation prompt and clicks "Install." A progress bar briefly appears and runs about 25% of the way, then an error message pops up: "Customized functionality in this application will not work because the certificate used to sign the deployment manifest for [the add-in] or its location is not trusted."

I understand that Microsoft would like me to pay for a signing certificate, but I am hoping to get this to work while avoiding that expense.

This article from Microsoft describes the use of a digital certificate as "an optional step": ClickOnce and Authenticode. This article states that an alternative route is for the user to click the "ClickOnce trust prompt" during installation: Grant trust to Office solutions. But as far as I understand the process, it is halted before it even gets to the ClickOnce trust prompt, so the user never gets that option.

For comparison, the user ran the installation on an older system. On that system he received the ClickOnce prompt, approved the software, and the installation ran successfully to the end. This indicates very strongly that the problem on the newer system is a security setting.

I instructed the user to open Excel and go to Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Add-Ins and remove the check mark from "Require Application Add-Ins to be signed by Trusted Publisher." There was no check mark to begin with, so that setting was not the issue.

I have instructed the user to go to the command prompt and clean out any remnants of the failed install with rundll32 dfshim CleanOnlineAppCache before each new installation attempt.

I'm at a loss as to where to look next. Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

One relatively easy workaround: you pack the "publish" folder as ZIP file, disable any online checks or deployments (in the project settings, select to publish locally, not to a website. Installing from a website or auto-update won't work without normal certificate). Then give your user that ZIP. User downloads that ZIP, then right-click the ZIP file and checks "Unblock". Then unzips and installs normally. Now any certificate should do. This applies if your user downloads your file from the internet.

So the idea is very simple: Just tell your user to click "Unblock" checkbox before extracting files from the ZIP archive you have sent and running them.

Another solution, you simply tell the user's system to trust your "self-signed" developer's certificate (add your certificate to "Trusted Publishers" store on the user computer). For that you need admin rights. Please note that user's admins probably won't like this idea, unless you and your user work in the same organization. Here are the instructions: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skype-sdk/sdn/articles/installing-the-trusted-root-certificate

The best and easiest of course would be if you buy a normal code signing certificate. They are not that expensive, you can get one from COMODO (SectiGo) for example for something like $70/year though their resellers.

Answer 2

On the target machine. you need to install and trust the certificate used to sign your addin (see Signing tab of your project options)

Answer 3

What is required for the certification process, is it a quick process? Are they certifying me/ my business or the code??

It is a quick process for the process:

Sign with valid certificate when publishing.

Add the publisher into Trusted Publisher before installing when Macro Settings is a high security level.

Finish installing.

You can obtain a certificate for code signing in one of three ways:

Purchase one from a certificate vendor.

Receive one from a group in your organization responsible for creating digital certificates.

Generate your own certificate with MakeCert.exe, which is included with the Windows Software Development Kit (SDK).