How do I install an SSL certificate on IIS?
Manually installing an SSL certificate and its intermediates on IIS often leads to errors where keys cannot be exported or requests cannot be completed correctly. This leaves site owners stuck with expired certificates when developers become unresponsive or guides fail, preventing them from securing their websites without direct hosting panel access.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Reverting back to the previous year's SSL and switching back to the new one
- 2Re-keying the server and starting again with a freshly generated SSL
- 3Using online tools like SSLLabs to test the site
- 4Contacting the hosting provider directly to regain control of the hosting account
- 5Migrating the site to a different host
- 6Trying to use plugins like WP Encryption to generate or install certificates
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I followed the iis 10 guide by GoDaddy. I've installed what was provides in the iis zip for our SSL cert. Installed the intermediate via mmc, completed the cert request. Not sure what I've done wrong”source ↗
“I do not have access to the hosting panel or FTP files”source ↗
“This person has become unresponsive and I have an SSL certificate that has been expired for two months.”source ↗
“Is there a quick fix via WordPress to renew the expired SSL certificate while I figure out how to reclaim my website from the unresponsive developer?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4Why is it so hard to manage short-lived server certificates?
- 2How to secure a WordPress site with zero technical knowledge
- 2Secure European email provider for custom domains
- 2How to set up local server replication and redundancy
- 2How to manage multiple client domains without paying per domain
- 3Why does software installation fail on secure systems?