VB.NET

Backup Windows Current User / Personal Certificates to a .zip

See more Certificates Examples

Demonstrates how to backup the certificates in the Windows registry-based Current User certificate store (in the "Personal" Logical Store as seen in certmgr.msc), to a zip archive. Certificates having an exportable private key are exported to .pfx files. Certificates with no private key, or with a non-exportable private key, are exported to .cer files.

Obviously, this example only runs on Windows computers.

VB.NET

Dim success As Boolean = False

Dim certStore As New Chilkat.CertStore

Dim readOnly As Boolean = True
success = certStore.OpenCurrentUserStore(readOnly)
If (Not success) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(certStore.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


Dim pfxPassword As String = "secret"

Dim allSuccess As Boolean = True
Dim numSuccess As Integer = 0

Dim zip As New Chilkat.Zip
zip.NewZip("qa_output/personalCerts.zip")

Dim certData As New Chilkat.BinData
Dim sbFilename As New Chilkat.StringBuilder

' Iterate over the certificates in the Current User store.
Dim cert As New Chilkat.Cert
Dim numCerts As Integer = certStore.NumCertificates
Dim i As Integer = 0
While i < numCerts
    certStore.GetCert(i,cert)
    Debug.WriteLine("DN = " & cert.SubjectDN)

    sbFilename.SetString("cert")
    sbFilename.AppendInt(i + 1)

    Dim bHasPrivateKey As Boolean = cert.HasPrivateKey()
    If ((bHasPrivateKey = True) And (cert.PrivateKeyExportable = True)) Then
        ' Export to a .pfx
        success = cert.ExportToPfxBd(pfxPassword,True,certData)
        If (success = True) Then
            sbFilename.Append(".pfx")
            zip.AddBd(sbFilename.GetAsString(),certData)
        End If

    Else
        ' Export to a .cer
        success = cert.ExportCertDerBd(certData)
        If (success = True) Then
            sbFilename.Append(".cer")
            zip.AddBd(sbFilename.GetAsString(),certData)
        End If

    End If

    If (success <> True) Then
        allSuccess = False
    Else
        numSuccess = numSuccess + 1
    End If

    i = i + 1
End While

If (numSuccess > 0) Then
    success = zip.WriteZipAndClose()
    If (success <> True) Then
        Debug.WriteLine(zip.LastErrorText)
        allSuccess = False
    End If

End If


Debug.WriteLine("All success = " & allSuccess)