Ordinary users with a certificate store of Windows 7 or any other operating system belonging to this family almost never encounter it. But here system administrators or users of a sufficiently high level of training, it is sometimes extremely necessary to use it to delete old documents or digital signatures, as well as to install new ones. Why all this is needed and where in Windows 7 the certificate store is located, then we will consider. It must be said in advance that ordinary users may need to consider these issues in order to obtain general information and to perform the above actions, since it cannot be ruled out that they may be required in a certain situation.
What is a certificate store on Windows operating systems?
Let's start by defining the term itself. What is a Windows 7 certificate store? In essence, this is a specially designated place in which all kinds of electronic documents are stored, including digital signatures, but not in the usual, but in encrypted form. Since all objects in any OS are presented exclusively in the form of files, this storage can also be attributed to this category, however, it is impossible to open it with a program like a text editor. In addition, the Windows 7 certificate store itself is divided into two parts. One refers to the registered local user, the second to the computer as a whole. The main purpose of all such documents is to ensure the security of a computer system, for example, in order to prevent dubious, potentially unsafe or undesirable software from entering it. Thus, a certificate or digital signature certifies the authenticity and security of a particular software product, and in some cases can be used as some verified identifier of the user himself.
How to open Windows 7 certificate store: method one
As for access, in all the latest systems, starting with just the seventh modification, it can and should be done exclusively on behalf of the administrator, moreover, even though the superuser account can be disabled. There are three (at least) ways to access.
The simplest is the call from the “Control Panel” of the browser properties, where on the content tab, to view the necessary information, you can use either the certificate button or the publisher display button. In the first case, usually nothing will be presented in the list, so you need to use the "Advanced" button to view all available items. When viewing publishers, software products that have the appropriate digital signatures and certificates will be immediately shown. But the inconvenience of this access method is that in the Windows 7 certificate store only those data of programs and publishers that in their work can demand access to the Internet through the browser built into the system will be shown.
Access to certificates: method two
To view absolutely all the information, you should use a specialized access tool, which is called from the "Run" console with the certmgr.msc command, after which a kind of manager is launched.
Digital signatures are presented in the section corresponding to the local user, and the main array is displayed in the root and intermediate certification authorities. As already probably clear, this tool just can act not only as a means of ensuring system security, but also certify unsigned software products.
How to remove certificates from Windows 7 store?
Some certificates and EOCs may be out of date. That is why they should be deleted. Naturally, without extreme necessity, ordinary users do not need to do such things on their own. However, when detecting software conflicts, sometimes nothing else simply remains (for example, if the verification of driver signatures cannot be completely disabled). To remove any component presented in the manager described for the second access procedure, the RMB menu on the selected certificate is used with the subsequent activation of the delete item.
For example, Apple’s signature may be stored in personal certificates, although software or an Apple device connection is no longer used. So why keep such records if, upon reinstalling the driver or application, the certificate and signature are automatically entered into the registry? Obviously, due to the presence of such components, the system registry is partially clogged, and most optimizer programs do not delete such data. And the more the registry inflates, the slower the entire operating system loads and runs.
Adding a certificate or EDS
If we are talking about adding certificates, import can be performed when accessing the repository using the first two methods. But in the case of user-level digital signatures at the local level (and even for installing process automation), it is best to use the addition of snap-ins in the MMC console, which is called up from the Run menu by the command of the same name.
Via the file menu, you should choose to add or remove snap-ins, then find the certificate item in the menu on the left, add the item to the current snap-in by pressing the button to the right, specify the type (for the user, service or computer account), after which you can keep the new snap convenient location. After calling up the saved settings, it will be possible to import certificates and signatures, manage them, change security policies without directly accessing the corresponding section, etc., without the need for preliminary steps to add snap-ins to different branches.