What is the Security Certif., exactly?  And how important is it?  And where do you go to get a new one??

And how do you check to see if this or that site has one???

Ok. - 4 questions is a bit much, but my ignorance is far reaching!!! 

A public key certificate, usually just called a certificate, is a digitally signed statement that binds the value of a public key to the identity of the person, device, or service that holds the corresponding private key. One of the main benefits of certificates is that hosts no longer have to maintain a set of passwords for individual subjects who need to be authenticated as a prerequisite to access. Instead, the host merely establishes trust in a certificate issuer.

Most certificates in common use are based on the X.509 v3 certificate standard.

Typically, certificates contain the following information:

• The subject's public key value.
  
  
• The subject's identifier information, such as the name and e-mail address.
  
  
• The validity period (the length of time that the certificate is considered valid).
  
  
• Issuer identifier information.
  
  
• The digital signature of the issuer, which attests to the validity of the binding between the subject's public key and the subject's identifier information.
  
  

A certificate is valid only for the period of time specified within it; every certificate contains Valid From and Valid To dates, which set the boundaries of the validity period. Once a certificate's validity period has passed, a new certificate must be requested by the subject of the now-expired certificate.

" And how important is it? "

My Puter thinks it's pretty darn important because with out it, It won't let me do stuff...  Like upload pics to this site.

" And where do you go to get a new one?? "

AA went to Comodo Repository.com for theres, and the issuer was UNT-userfirst-object

" And how do you check to see if this or that site has one "

The Find Certificates dialog box allows you to locate certificates based on criteria that you specify.

Users or local Administrators is the minimum group membership required to complete this procedure. Review the details in "Additional considerations" in this topic.

To find a certificate

1. In the console tree, click the top Certificates node for a user, computer, or service.

2. On the Action menu, click Find Certificates.

3. Fill in the requested information. The following options are available:

   • Find in. Search in a specific certificate store, or search in all certificate stores.
     
     
   • Look in field. Allows you to limit a search to one of the following fields:
     
     
     • Issued By. The name or a portion of the name of the issuer.
       
       
     • Issued To. The name or a portion of the name of the entity to which the certificate was issued.
       
       
     • MD5 Hash. The thumbprint value or a portion of thumbprint value of the MD5 hash used for this certificate.
       
       
     • Serial Number. The serial number or a portion of the serial number of the certificate.
       
       
     • SHA1 Hash. The thumbprint value or a portion of thumbprint value of the SHA1 hash used for this certificate.
       
       
   • Contains. The name, portion of a name, serial number, portion of a serial number, thumbprint value, or portion of a thumbprint value that you want to search for.
     
     

4. After you have entered the appropriate information, click Find Now.

Additional considerations

• User certificates can be managed by the user or by an administrator. Certificates issued to a computer or service can only be managed by an administrator or user who has been given the appropriate permissions.
  
  
• To open the Certificates snap-in, see Add the Certificates Snap-in to an MMC.

Every certificate has a validity period. After the end of the validity period, the certificate is no longer considered an acceptable or usable credential. The Certificates snap-in enables you to renew a certificate issued from a Windows enterprise certification authority (CA) before or after the end of its validity period by using the Certificate Renewal Wizard.

You can either renew the certificate with the same key set that you used before, or you can renew a certificate with a new key set. This decision can be based on a number of factors, including the lifetime of the certificate, the length of the existing or future key, the value of the data protected by the key pair, and the possibility that a private key has been obtained by a malicious user.

Before you renew a certificate, you need to know:

• The issuing CA.
  
  
• (Optional) If you want a new public key and private key pair for the certificate, the cryptographic service provider (CSP) that should be used to generate the key pair.
  
  

Windows provides an expiration notification to let you know that specific user or computer certificates have expired or are about to expire. In most cases, autoenrollment will automatically renew these certificates the next time you are connected to the network and log on to the computer.

Certificates are typically issued to a particular computer, user, or service, for specific purposes, for specific durations, and often for specific recipients. As a result, at times you might need to obtain additional certificates, renew existing certificates, examine or modify the properties of a certificate, or move certificates. Although many of these tasks can be performed for a single user, computer, or service, other tasks are best performed automatically by an administrator from a server. The following sections describe common certificate management tasks and the procedure to complete them.

I cannot enroll for a new certificate by using the Certificate Request Wizard.

I get a message indicating that I need to enroll for a new certificate, but the enrollment process fails.

I cannot enroll for a new certificate over the Web.

I am no longer able to use my certificate.

Any other questions??

Wow! 

Thanks!!!  

Can't call you; 'half-a-job-jeffers'!!!     Impressive!!!!

Sorry Wrong info, Ron

False alarm, Ron