Self-Signed Certificate issue when connecting to the exchange server

- Installing a Self-Signed Certificate as a Trusted Root CA in Windows Vista

If your exchange server is using a self-signed certificate, using either Outlook or OWA to send or receive e-mail, you must install the certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store in order for RPC over Http to work. This article will explain this situation and how to install the self-signed certificate in Windows Vista.

1. Connect to your OWA site by going to https://host.domainname.com/exchange

You should see the screen above due to the fact that your self-signed cert is not trusted.

2. Choose "Continue to this website (not recommended)".

You should then be presented with your OWA logon page.

3. Click on "Certificate Error" beside the address bar and select view certificates.

If you do not see the Install Certificate option close IE7 and then right click on IE7 and choose run as administrator and load the page again.

4. Once you have the install certificate button available, select "Install Certificate".

5. This will launch the Certificate Import Wizard. Make sure to choose the option "Place all certificates in the following store" and select browse.

6. Select Trusted Root Certification Authorities and click Ok.

7. Click Finish on Completing the Certificate Import Wizard

8. Click yes on the security warning to install the certificate

9. If you want to verify the Certificate has been installed you can load the certificates snap in and you should see it under Certificates -Current User-Trusted Root Certification Authorities-Certificates.

Note:

(1) You can also copy it to the local computer's certificate store so it applies for all users that use the machine.

(2) You can create a group policy object and import this certificate into "Computer Settings\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Public Key Policies\Trusted Root Certification Authorities".  Link the GPO at the domain level to have it apply to all computers in the organization.