Windows – what’s the difference b/w MMC.exe and certmgr.msc

Securitysslssl-certificatewindows

can anyone explain what's the difference b/w MMC.exe and certmgr.msc? MMC's file-> snap in functionality seems weird. some certificates appear in MMC when we select computer account from add/remove snap in but they do not appear in certmgr.

Best Answer

Certmgr.msc is an MMC snap-in. MMC is simply the windows GUI shell for most administrative and even some non-administrative snap-ins. Snap-ins load different functionality to work with different parts of the system or network. You can create custom MMC views that load multiple snap-ins at once. If certmgr.msc is displaying different results than when you load the MMC window it is most likely not pointing or loading from the same location.

More about MMC with references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Management_Console

Here's an existing SuperUser post that talks about changing the certmgr.msc container: https://superuser.com/questions/249484/how-can-i-start-certmgr-msc-for-computer-account