Signing EXE with Website SSL Cert

[Mr. Black]

I just got an SSL Certificate for my website, and i've been looking over certain articles, but I cannot find out how to make it work with the Microsoft signtool.exe utility...

Got it thru GoDaddy, if that's any help.

Any help? :(

[bkinkel]

You cannnot sign software with a web site SSL certificate. You need to get a code signing certificate - something different.

There are a couple of organizations out there that do it, but I got mine through K-Software who is a reseller for certificates from Comodo.

http://codesigning.ksoftware.net/

Regardless of who you go through, it is not an easy task. You need to provide a variety of indentification documents and the the certificate issuer will go through some steps to verifiy your identity. If you are a corporation, you may have to provide articles of incorporation or a Dun and Bradstreet number. As an independent software publisher, there are more hoops to go through.

I do recommend Ksoftware - dealing with them was a lot easier than dealing directly with Comodo. But the cert issuer, not the reseller, is ultimately who will be identifying your identity and may contact you directly for verification.

But if you have already gone through the identification process with GoDaddy, then it might be easier to stick with them for your code signing certificate.

http://www.godaddy.com/ssl/code-signing-certificate.aspx

Hope this helps.

-- Bryan

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

I think the only thing that'd stop you using an SSL certificate is how it chains, GoDaddy might have a separate chain for code signing certs than they do for web sites.

The actual technical reason is probably down to format differences, what GoDaddy is giving you probably isn't what the code signing tools want.

[bkinkel]

More on the differences between the two:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9527972/ssl-certificate-same-as-signing-certificate

[Mr. Black]

Thanks guys.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

More on the differences between the two:

http://stackoverflow...ing-certificate

Yeah, the "second" answer is correct, an SSL cert just isn't marked for code signing, and SSL certs expire.