Vista digital signatures

Signing certificate To create a digital signature, you need a signing certificate, which proves identity. When you send a digitally-signed macro or document, you also send your certificate and public key. A certificate is usually valid for a year, after which, the signer must renew, or get a new, signing certificate to establish identity.

Note: You can learn more about public and private keys in this article. Certificate authority CA A certificate authority is an entity similar to a notary public. It issues digital certificates, signs certificates to verify their validity and tracks which certificates have been revoked or have expired.

Authenticity The signer is confirmed as the signer. Integrity The content has not been changed or tampered with since it was digitally signed. Non-repudiation Proves to all parties the origin of the signed content.

Repudiation refers to the act of a signer denying any association with the signed content. Notarization Signatures in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft PowerPoint files, which are time stamped by a secure time-stamp server, under certain circumstances, have the validity of a notarization. To make these assurances, the content creator must digitally sign the content by using a signature that satisfies the following criteria:.

Important: Signed documents, which have a valid time stamp, are considered to have valid signatures, regardless of the age of the signing certificate. The certificate associated with the digital signature is issued to the signing publisher by a reputable certificate authority CA.

Note: If you digitally sign a document by using a digital certificate that you created, and then you share the digitally signed file, other people cannot verify the authenticity of your digital signature. Your digital signature can be authenticated only on the computer on which you created the digital signature.

Add or remove a digital signature in Office files. Get a digital ID. Find digital ID or digital signature services. Get a digital signature from a certificate authority or a Microsoft partner If you plan to exchange digitally-signed documents together with other people, and you want the recipients of your documents to be able to verify the authenticity of your digital signature, you can obtain a digital certificate from a reputable third-party certificate authority CA.

Create a digital certificate to digitally sign a document immediately If you do not want to purchase a digital certificate from a third-party certificate authority CA , or if you want to digitally sign your document immediately, you can create your own digital certificate.

What version of Windows are you using? Click OK. How can I get my own digital signature? You have two options for getting a digital signature: Get a digital signature from a Microsoft partner Create your own digital signature To learn more about each option, see the following sections.

Get a digital signature from a Microsoft partner If you select the option Get a digital ID from a Microsoft partner in the Get a Digital ID dialog box, you are redirected to the Microsoft Office website, where you can purchase a digital certificate from one of the third-party certificate authorities CAs.

Create your own digital signature If you do not want to purchase a digital certificate from a third-party certificate authority, or if you want to digitally sign your document immediately, you can create your own digital certificate by selecting the Create your own digital ID option in the Get a Digital ID dialog box. Need more help? Expand your skills. Get new features first. Was this information helpful?

Yes No. Thank you! Any more feedback? This type of signature is generated by using a commercial release certificate that is obtained from a CA that is a member of the Microsoft Root Certificate Program.

Signatures for deploying drivers only within corporate network environments, which are created by a digital certificate that is created and managed by Enterprise CA. Detailed information about how to configure an Enterprise CA is outside the scope of this documentation. Windows Vista and later versions of Windows include the following features that provide support for signatures that are generated by third parties:.

Administrators can control which driver publishers are trusted. Windows Vista and later versions of Windows installs drivers from trusted publishers without prompting. It never installs drivers from publishers that the administrator has chosen not to trust. The driver-signing policy is always set to Warn. An administrator must always authorize the installation of unsigned drivers or a driver from a publisher that is not yet trusted.

All device setup classes are treated equally. Otherwise, Windows treats the driver package as unsigned. Starting with Windows Vista, when there are several compatible drivers to choose from, the ranking algorithm that the operating system uses to select the best driver includes drivers that have third-party signatures.

IT departments can override the default ranking behavior by enabling or disabling the AllSignersEqual group policy.

Before installing a driver, Windows analyzes the driver package's digital signature. If a signature is present, Windows uses the signature to validate the files in the driver package. Based on the results of this analysis, Windows categorizes the digital signature as follows:.

Signed by a Windows signing authority. Signed by a trusted publisher. These drivers have been signed by a third-party, and user has explicitly chosen to always trust signed drivers from this publisher. Signed by an untrusted publisher. These drivers have been signed by a third-party, and the user has explicitly chosen to never trust drivers from this publisher.