A certificate chain could not be built to a trusted root authority

Question

During the installation of .NET Framework 4.6.2, I got an error:

.NET Framework installation failed: -2146762486. A certificate chain could not be built

Answer 1

Following OhioDeveloper’s lead, I essentially did the same thing for all the Dell Driver Packages that error on install in this Dell OptiPlex 3040... I bought a couple compact OptiPlex 3040’s from a business that was closing and therefore liquidating all assets

Ive been Fighting battles on all fronts trying to do a fresh Windows 7, install on the Dell and ran into the same problem... ( Net Framework 4.8 ) throws a ( Root Trust Certificate - Error ), at the start of the install just after it unpacks all the files and checks the host environment.

First I used ( 7-Zip ) [ freeware ], pointed it to the Net Framework installation file, and told it to extract... 7-zip will create a folder (with matching name) containing all the extracted contents of the file.

~ This part may seem “risky” if you are not familiar with opening installation files to see what they contain, but all we are doing here is, manually running, the specific file for your system and ignoring everything else. ~

Your looking for the ( .MSI ) files. For example....

Netfx_???????_x64.msi

There are many files with similar names, they only very in the middle ( ?????? ) pieces and have either ( x86 ) or ( x64 ) in the name.

If you’re on a 32 bit system, use the files with {x86} in the file name.

If you’re on a 64 bit system, use the files with {x64} in the file name.

...at this point, I had no guidance on which of the ( ????? ) variations of the file to use. There were 4 file naming variations.

CORE / EXTENDED / FULL / PATCH

These 4 file name variations didn't help at all... I was unsure if this would be an UPGRADE because in reality ( Net Framework 3.something ) is already installed with Windows.

CORE, is always an important file name, and sounded important, but eluded to nothing really...

EXTENDED, sounded silly and eluded again to nothing.

So I picked FULL, in the hopes it would “do it all” and negate the guesswork. So I had settled on the ( ...FULL_x64... ) version.

So I ran { NETFX_FULL_x64.msi }, and I am happy to report that ( Net Framework 4.8 ) installed with no errors.

...Hope this detailed walk-thru helps someone.

~TechnoDruid

SORRY TO BE SO LONG WINDED, THIS WAS AN ATTEMPT TO HELP USERS THAT DON’T (OR HAVEN'T EVER) ATTEMPTED NON-TRADITION WORK AROUNDS, TO FIX WINDOWS ERRORS.