Excel 2013 How to Add Digital Signature to VBA?

[btorrean]

Dear Forum,

I have recently purchased a digital signature certificate to use with my Excel workbooks. My purpose is to digitally sign my VBA code. I am able to digitally sign the workbooks using the signature insert in the workbook ribbon, however, I can't sign the code from the VBA editor. I am using Excel 2013 on a Windows 10 PC.

In the VBA editor, when I go to Tools >> Digtial Signature, I get the following message box:

The VBA project is currently signed as
Certificate name: [No certificate]
Sign as
Certificate name: [No certificate]

When I click 'Choose', I get the following notification:

No usable signing certificates are available. Please insert your smart card, or contact your administrator to obtain a signing certificate.

I have also tried, unsuccessfully, adding the certificate in the Trust Center.

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Brian

 

[John_w]

Add the certificate to the following Current User stores: Trusted Root Certification Authorities, Trusted Publishers and Personal. I don't know if all 3 are required. After that the certificate should be available in VBA Tools -> Digital Signature.

 

[btorrean]

Dear John_w,

Thanks for your reply. I have done as you suggested, following the instructions here. When done, I closed the mmc, re-started Excel and attempted to select a signature. I got the same message. I also tried running Excel as an administrator (which I am on my computer), with the same result.

Do you have any other ideas?

Brian

 

[John_w]

Have you rebooted?

From that link, try also "Import the Certification Authority's certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder in the Certificates (Local Computer) node."

 

[btorrean]

Have you rebooted?

From that link, try also "Import the Certification Authority's certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder in the Certificates (Local Computer) node."

John,

I rebooted and also imported the certificates to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder in the Certificates (Local Computer) node. Please see image below.

I still get the same message as before in Excel, not showing any certificates as available, and not allowing me to choose any.

Initially, I installed the certificates using Firefox, as that is the web browser I use. On a whim, I decided to check certificates in Microsoft Edge, to see if that made any difference. Even after importing my certificates to the Trusted Root Certificates folder using Edge, my certificates still don't show up in the list. Please see image below.

Should appear as "Brian J. Torreano" in the list, but as you can see, the certificates aren't there.

Do you have any other ideas? I'm about to throw my computer out the window! ?

Brian

 

[John_w]

I think Intended Purposes must include Code Signing for the certificate to be available to the VBA project.

You could try adding Code Signing to the certificate. To do this, right-click the certificate in MMC -> click Properties -> Extended Validation tab -> enter 1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.3 in the input box -> click Add OID -> click OK.

The certificate I use for signing VBA projects was self-certified using solution version 1 at:

How to create a self-signed certificate that can be used to sign MS-Office VBA projects (Excel/Word macros) on multiple computers

 

[btorrean]

John_w, I attempted that to no avail. I am going to mark your first solution as an answer, because that will probably work for most people. At this point, I'm giving up. F-ing Microsoft.

Brian

 

[mcrawf]

I was able to fix this by importing the certificate via the Internet Options / Content / Certificates interface, into the following three stores: Personal, Trusted Publishers, Trusted Root Certification Authorities.

Previously, I'd imported the certificate into all three locations via "Manage computer certificates", for machine-level, and "Manage user certificates", for user-level, but although the certificate showed up in all six locations (three locations machine, three locations user), Excel didn't recognize it.

However, going through the Internet Options UI did the trick.