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(841798) - Describes an issue that may occur when you try to install a machine certificate on a Windows XP-based computer where Windows was installed by using an unattended installation.

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Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

Article ID: 841798 - Last Review: May 28, 2004 - Revision: 1.1

"Machine Certificate cannot be installed" error message in Windows XP

System TipThis article applies to a different version of Windows than the one you are using. Content in this article may not be relevant to you. Visit the Windows Vista Solution Center

SYMPTOMS

When you try to install a machine certificate on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, you may receive the following error message:
Machine Certificate cannot be installed, Error 0x80090016 NTE_BADKEYSET

CAUSE

This issue may occur if you perform an unattended installation of Windows XP, and you configure the installation to host the user profiles on a drive or drive partition other than the startup drive partition. In this situation, the permissions inheritance from the MachineKeys folder may not work correctly. After the Setup program requests a certificate, the private key file is created in the MachineKeys folder. This file does not inherit full control permissions from the MachineKeys folder.

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, follow these steps:
  1. Create a batch file named SetMachineACLs.bat with the following commands:
    convert d: /FS:NTFS
    	rmdir "D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys" 
    	regsvr32 rsaenh.dll
    	rmdir "D:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\DSS\MachineKeys"
    	regsvr32 dssenh.dll
    
    
  2. Save SetMachineACLs.bat file in the c:\scripts folder.
  3. Edit the Unattend.bat file to add the following switches to the winnt32 command line:
    /copydir:i386\scripts
    /cmd:c:\scripts\SetMachineACLs.bat
    

APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Keywords: 
kbprb KB841798
       

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