Signing Windows installation MSI packages with a certificate

This article will describe how to sign your windows installer (MSI) packages with a certificate. For that you need three things in place:

1. p12 certificate file - Personal Information Exchange (.p12)
2. the msi package
3. Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) installed (for your respective windows installation)

In order to sign your package you need a Code Signing Certificate.
INFO:  Certum  offers free code certificates for open source projects - Open Source Code Signing, at the time of this writing.


After you have all of the above three prerequisites -> this below is the two ways to sign in Windows 7 and Windows 8 respectively:
(Execute the following and substitute your directory, names and password correctly!! In other words - substitute the bold text below plus the web link)

Windows 7

c:\Users\peter.manev>"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\signtool.exe"  sign /v /f my-p12-file.p12 /p "PASSWORD-FOR-p12-HERE" /d "My install package is very cool and is about this" /du "http://www.info-for-my-project.org/" /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll my-win-installer-package.msi

Windows 8

c:\Users\peter.manev>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.0\bin\x86\signtool.exe"  ssign /v /f my-p12-file.p12 /p "PASSWORD-FOR-p12-HERE" /d "My install package is very cool and is about this" /du "http://www.info-for-my-project.org/" /t http://timestamp.verisign.com/scripts/timstamp.dll my-win-installer-package.msi

The result should be something like this:

The following certificate was selected:
    Issued to: Open Source Developer, Developers Team
    Issued by: Certum Level III CA
    Expires:   Thu Mar 20 08:07:06 2014
    SHA1 hash: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Done Adding Additional Store
Successfully signed: my-win-installer-package.msi

Number of files successfully Signed: 1
Number of warnings: 0

Number of errors: 0

Some more information - MS Root Certificate Members:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2592.windows-root-certificate-program-members-list-all-cas.aspx

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/14215.windows-and-windows-phone-8-ssl-root-certificate-program-member-cas.aspx
(windows 8 and windows 8 phone)