Still having trouble signing assemblies in VS2005 Beta 2

I have not been succesful in signing assemblies in VS2005 Beta 2.

First some info:
I have a solution with (3) projects [2 of which are .dll's]
I am using ClickOnce to deploy the program over the Internet.
Security Settings are set to full trust.
The program manifest is successfully signed with a valid authenticode certificate.

Ok, back to the issue:
I have tried to sign the assemblies by browsing to the .pfx file that, which is the same one that I use to sign the manifest, under 'Signing' of the respective assembly's property page.The problem is everytime I try to set the .pfx certificate for signing it prompts me for the password to verify, I type the correct password and click OK, and then dies with the following message "Cannot find the certificate and private key for decryption".

FYI: I have copied mycert.spc and the mykey.pvk files to the main directoy located one level under where the solution is stored.

Do all the files need to have the same name?

Why is it saying that it can not find the certificate and private key?

Has anyone successfully signed an assembly with an authenticode certificate?

Any help, suggestions, and/or advice would be greatly appreciated. ;)

[1243 byte] By [JBrown9264] at [2007-12-16]
# 1

You dont really have to sign the assemblies, signing the manifest files is enough. I also had some problems with it, so now I am just signing the manifest files only, and that is working Smile

KunalYadav at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...
# 2
Ok, then what is the purpose of also signing the assemblies?

Wouldn't the other two dll's not be verifiable (by that I mean that they haven't been altered since installation - the reason for signing them)? Or since they are part of the app manifest that is signed are they?

I see a security need to have them verified at run time also.

Note: IMHO the assembly signing functionality in Beta 2 is very Alpha, and will probably work quite effortlessly in the final build. But is all but unable to work in Beta 2. Correct me if I'm wrong.

JBrown9264 at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...
# 3
You need to sign the assemblies if only you want to strong name then. The manifest has the hash of the dll's file info i think and the manifest will be able to verify it automatically. Maybe someone from the clickonce team can through more insight into this.
KunalYadav at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...
# 4
Please excuse me for being so green, but what exactly is strong naming?
JBrown9264 at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...
# 6
But if I have not signed any of the assemblies then there should be no problem transferring Full Trust, correct?
JBrown9264 at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...
# 7
If the assemblies you are carrying are private to the ClickOnce application and not meant to be shared across multiple applications or installed in the GAC I would recommend leaving them simply named (not signed). You get security via the ClickOnce manifest signature. Also, the ClickOnce app manifest has a hash of every file and assembly carried by the app. At install time ClickOnce verifies these hashes so you're guaranteed integrity - that the app has not been tampered with.

Regards,
Sameer

SameerBhangar at 2007-9-9 > top of Msdn Tech,Windows Forms,ClickOnce and Setup & Deployment Projects...