Generating a Code Signing Certificate on Windows

If you are requesting a Code Signing Certificate to sign your code such as your .NET Assemblies or your installation packages, you may see an article such as https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/7282/generating-a-certificate-signing-request-for-code-signing-certificates?locale=en

As you can tell, it is asking you to use OpenSSL in order to generate your Certificate Request and your Private Key.

However, if you are using a version of Windows that supports IIS such as Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2 (client OSes such as Windows 8.1 also support it), then you can generate your Code Signing Certificate directly through the IIS Management Console!

1. Open up the IIS Management Console (inetmgr)
2. Click on the server name
3. In the Features view, click on Server Certificates
4. Click on Create Certificate Request in the Actions pane
5. Fill out the necessary information in each of the dialogs.  Make sure you set the Bit length to 2048. 
6. Open up the generated CSR request text file and use that to request/order your Code Signing certificate.