How to: View Certificates with the MMC Snap-in

A common type of credential is the X.509 certificate. When creating secure services or clients, you can specify a certificate be used as the client or service credential by using methods such as the SetCertificate method. The method requires various parameters, such as the store where the certificate is stored and a value to use when searching for the certificate. The following procedure demonstrates how to examine the stores on a computer to find an appropriate certificate. For an example of finding the certificate thumbprint, see How to: Retrieve the Thumbprint of a Certificate.

To view certificates in the MMC snap-in

Open a Command Prompt window.

Type mmc and press the ENTER key. Note that to view certificates in the local machine store, you must be in the Administrator role.

On the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap In.

Click Add.

In the Add Standalone Snap-in dialog box, select Certificates.

Click Add.

In the Certificates snap-in dialog box, select Computer account and click Next. Optionally, you can select My User account or Service account. If you are not an administrator of the computer, you can manage certificates only for your user account.

In the Select Computer dialog box, click Finish.

In the Add Standalone Snap-in dialog box, click Close.

On the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box, click OK.

In the Console Root window, click Certificates (Local Computer) to view the certificate stores for the computer.

Optional. To view certificates for your account, repeat steps 3 to 6. In step 7, instead of selecting Computer account, click My User account and repeat steps 8 to 10.

Optional. On the File menu, click Save or Save As. Save the console file for later reuse.

Viewing Certificates with Internet Explorer

You can also view, export, import, and delete certificates by using Internet Explorer.

To view certificates with Internet Explorer, open Internet Explorer, click on Tools, then select Internet Options to display the Internet Options dialog box.

Click the Content tab.

Under Certificates, click Certificates.

To view details of any certificate