Extracting keyset from a password-protected pfx file

Question

I've signed my assemblies using the VS C# .NET IDE, with a password-protected key container file. I also want to obfuscate my assemblies as a post-build event. This will cause the signature to become invalid. So I tried to extract the keyset from the pfx in order to re-sign the assemblies, but the following error will occure:

>>command prompt> sn -pc key.pfx key.snk Microsoft (R) .NET Framework Strong Name Utility  Version 2.0.50727.42 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved. Failed to extract public key from key pair -- Keyset does not exist

What should I do now?

Answer 1

SN's -pc switch will extract the public key from a key container on the machine, rather than the certificate itself.  You can use -p switch to extract directly from the PFX file.  If you really want to use the key container you can put the cert's keys in a key container using SN's -i switch.

Brian Stern [MSFT]