How to extract your domain certificate to use Exchange ActiveSync on your Windows Mobile Device

If you’ve tried configuring your Windows Mobile device to connect to your exchange server, but have been receiving errors on the lack of a certificate issue, this may help.

Keep in mind it’s always best to contact your local IT department to find out if they have an easier way of doing this, or a better way.

If your desktop computer at work is joined to the domain, chances are you have a certificate installed that authenticates various systems on your network. By extracting this certificate and installing it on your Windows Mobile device, chances are this will solve your issues.

Keep in mind that if your IT department did not generate your Exchange SSL cert from the domain certificate authority this won’t work.

Now let’s get started…

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Press the “Alt” button to expose the menu
3. Select “Tools” then “Internet Options”
4. Select the “Content Tab”, and hit the “Certificates” button.
5. Select the “Trusted Root Certification Authorities”.
6. Now look through the list and look for something that may contain your Company’s name in it, or the name of one of your network servers.
7. Once you find this, click once to highlight, and select the “Export” button.
8. Go through the wizard and leave all defaults. At the very end where it asks you to choose a file, save it on your desktop and call it “cert.cer”.
9. Copy this file to your Windows Mobile Device (using a Memory Card, or a Sync function).
10. On your Windows Mobile device, use the File Explorer to browse to the location where you saved your cert.cer file, and select it to run. It should say “You have successfully installed a certificate”.

Now go ahead and configure your Exchange account and chances are it should work!

Keep in mind that some carriers lock down devices to avoid the installation of untrusted certificates. I haven’t run in to this issue, but I have heard about it happening. If this is the case, you will need to do some research on your phone and find a way to bypass this security block.