Unable to find manifest signing certificate in the certificate store


I have recently upgraded operating systems from Windows Vista to Windows 7 beta 1. When attempting to run a program that complied on Vista, I get the error message; Unable to find manifest signing certificate in the certificate store. [name of the project]

A brief Google search shows this is a common error, but no-one seems to have the error I do, as the suggestion is to edit the .cs.project file and remove the manifest signing section which I presently do not have.

The cause of this error is click once. Whenever you use click once, it creates a temporary strong key name like this one

tempkey1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is this key that is missing, hence the compilation error. Luckily to create another temporary key is easy. Double click into the properties node in  the Visual Studio Solution Explorer, select the "signing" tab and click on Create Test Certificate…certificate1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t bother entering a password, click on OK, and you should now find a new temporary key has been created and added, so your project will now compile.

14 thoughts on “Unable to find manifest signing certificate in the certificate store

  1. There is another reason for this error to occur. If you have used the [assembly: AssemblyKeyName()] attribute to sign an assembly with a key from the key store and at the same time you project has the option “Sign the assembly” in the project options checked even if it points to the same key.

    To fix the problem remove one of the two declarations (in the AssemblyInfo.cs or in the project properties)

  2. This solution did not work for me. I upgraded from Vista Home SP1 to SP2.

    I do not have the assembly: AssemblyKeyName() nor do I have an AssembleInfo.cs.

    Thank you though for the post.
    Christine

  3. You saved my life.THANX A MILLION!..I thought I had to start from scratch and was going into panic mode..thank you so much again!!

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