Restoring personal certificate on windows 10 due to encrypted files

Question

Hello All,

I ran into some trouble. In certmgr.msc I have removed my personal certificate by mistake while trying to update some certificates needed for ID card. The problem is that files which were encrypted with EFS are no longer accessible. Is there any procedure how could I restore certificate and upload personal keys which are still on my computer. Or there is any other solution?

Answer 1

Hi @Gintautas

You could try restoring to a point in time before you deleted the certificate on the computer:

Restore from a system restore point

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/recovery-options-in-windows-31ce2444-7de3-818c-d626-e3b5a3024da5#bkmk_restore_from_system_restore_point

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Answer 2

Hello there,

You can try to export the certificate and then try to add it back and check if you can access the Encrypted files. To export a certificate click on the certificate in the MMC, click on the All Tasks menu and then on Export.

This article describes how to recover a private key after you use the Certificates Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to delete the original certificate in Internet Information Services (IIS).

Assign a private key to a new certificate after deleting the original certificate in IIS https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/developer/webapps/iis/development/assign-certificate-private-key

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