Said It Here

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.

Overview
People affected2 accounts across 2 forums
Workarounds found6 items attempted
Community agreement1 total upvotes

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

6 items+ Contribute

Found another way around this?

Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.

  1. 1
    Reverting back to the previous year's SSL and switching back to the new one
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  2. 2
    Re-keying the server and starting again with a freshly generated SSL
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  3. 3
    Using online tools like SSLLabs to test the site
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  4. 4
    Contacting the hosting provider directly to regain control of the hosting account
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  5. 5
    Migrating the site to a different host
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  6. 6
    Trying to use plugins like WP Encryption to generate or install certificates
    Did this help you?
Tried another approach not listed above?+ Share your workaround ↑

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/sysadmin1 person · September 2026

“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 ↗

meowwentthedino · r/sysadmin · 1 upvotes

“Need help setting up an SSL on IIS.”source ↗

“Note: When I follow steps 4 - 6 before finishing I can see it does say "No" when looking at the "Export Keys" part, though when going through the Export options I see the export keys option is greyed out.”source ↗

meowwentthedino · r/sysadmin
r/Wordpress1 person · September 2026

“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 ↗

aliengoddess2010 · r/Wordpress

Where this came up

r/sysadminr/WordpressSSL certificateswebsite management

People with this problem also raised