Invalid digital signature because offline

[jonathan.reyes1]

We are distributing software and a customer cannot install and it returns invalid digital signature.
After some investigation we figured out that it was because the desktop is offline (has no Internet connection),it cannot verify the digital signature.
For their own reasons they will not connect it to the Internet. Is there a way to get around this?

Thank you very much in advance!

[Dan]

Hello Jonathan,

Indeed, the core of the problem is that your Windows installation is unable to contact the certificate provider that can verify the installer’s security certificate. I'm afraid your options are very limited. Here is what you can try:

• 1-In order to prevent this in the future, you can use another certificate from another CA authority which is recognized by default by Windows (e.g. VerySign)
  2-Ask your user to turn off digital signature checking

In order to turn off digital signature checking, you need to change some settings in the internet options.

• You can access these settings either via the Control Panel or Internet Explorer
  • Start> Control Panel > Internet Options
  • Internet Explorer> Click on Tools> Internet Options > Advanced
• From there, tick the box next to 'Allow software to run or to install even if signature is invalid'
• Click on the OK button to validate your choice.

If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

Best regards,
Dan

[jonathan.reyes1]

Hi Dan,

I tried doing option 2, didn't work though, I will consider option 1.
Thank you very much!

Best regards,

Jonathan

[Dan]

Hi Jonathan,

Please note that a restart of the machine is needed in order to take effect the related changes. Maybe your client missed that.

If you have other questions, please let me know.

Best regards,
Dan

[alanwol]

For me the following steps worked:

In my case an error showed with the message that the counter signature was invalid

To check the cause of the problem, the following steps are needed.
1. Right click on the nova-setup.exe
2. click Properties.
3. In the properties window select the Digital Signatures tab.
4. Select the line with your certificate
5. click Details.
6. Select the counter signature
7. Click View Certificate
8. Select the Certification path tab

This showed that the root certificate issuer could not be found.

To resolve this a working PC is needed and the following steps need to be done on it. I used a Windows 10 pc that did not have the problem.

Repeat steps 1 to 8.

9. Select the root certicate
10. Click view certificate
11. Click details
12. Click Copy to file, leave everything on default, name it rootca.cer for instance

On the non-working pc

13. Open a command prompt
14. run mmc
15. Select file, and click Add/ Remove Snap-in
16. Select certificates and click add
17. Select local computer
18. Click next
19. Leave on Local Computer and click finish
20. Click on ok

21. Expand the newly added Certificates
22. Expand Trusted Root Certification Authorities
23. Right click on Certificates
24. Select All Tasks -> Import
25. Follow the instructions and browse to the previously created rootca.cer file
26. When done it should show a pop-up Import succesful
27. In some cases a reboot is necessary

After these steps are done, the error messages in the certificate screen should no longer be there and it is possible to install the software.

[Daniel]

Hello and welcome to our forums,

Thank you for sharing your solution with us. I'm sure someone else will find this useful in the future.

All the best,
Daniel