Strong Name sn.exe: Failed to install key pair — Object already exists

Question

I have 2 different versions of the same project on my machine. One from the code trunk, and the other from a code branch. These projects use a .pfx key to enable strong naming.

Answer 1

I have managed to resolve my issue, without fully understanding the cause. I found a post about a similar issue here, but did not fit my circumstance precisely, as I had only ever logged on to my machine as a single user.

The post showed how to delete the container, but I couldn't do this either as it said the container didn't exist. What it did though was prompt me to run the command prompt as an Administrator, which I had not done previously. This allowed me to uninstall and re-install the certificate, and both versions of the project now build successfully.

My assumption is that somehow the certificate had initially been installed (by me) under a different user than the one I tried to install with the second time, though I don't know why this would be, as I have only ever logged on to the machine as a single user. It remains something of a mystery to me.

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Summary:

1. Start the developer command prompt as administrator, otherwise you'll get a misleading error saying the container doesn't exist.
2. Run sn -d VS_KEY_XXXXXXXXXXX to remove the old key.
3. You should now be able to reinstall the certificate.