Hello Readers,

I'm trying to create a web service client using VS .NET 2003 along
with WSE 2.0 under Win2K Prof.  I'm having trouble using a X.509
digital certificate as it seems my app generates a windows exception
when trying to read the private key of the certificate.  I believe the
digital certificate is installed on my machine as I can see it in both
mmc and the X509 Certificate Tool that comes with WSE 2.0.  Also, both
tools indicate that the certificate contains a private key.  In my
app, I'm using the X509Certificate**** classes to retrieve the
certificate and when I step through the code using the debugger and
Watch the contents of the retrieved certificate object, the value of
the Key attribute is:

  <error: an exception of type:
{System.ComponentModel.Wind32Exception} occurred>

And sure enough if I try to call something like cert.Key, an exception
is thrown.

Now my desparate search of newsgroups came across several recent
threads that mention WSE expects the private key to be in C:\Documents
and Settings\All
Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys.  Using the
X509 Certificate tool, I found that the private key file is located in
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application
Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\S-1-5-21...
The certificate was installed in the Root Store of Local Computer.

My question is whether WSE does expect the private key file to be in
the MachineKeys directory.  If so, how does one manipulate the
installation of the digital certificate to make it go into that
directory?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Norm.