Trusted root certificates that are required by Windows Server 2003, by Windows XP, and by Windows 2000 (293781)

SUMMARY

As part of a public key infrastructure (PKI) trust management procedure, some administrators may choose to remove trusted root certificates from a Windows domain, server or client. However, the root certificates that are listed in the "More Information" section in this article are required for the operating system to operate correctly. Because removal of the following certificates may limit functionality of the operating system or may cause the computer to fail, you should not remove them.

MORE INFORMATION

Necessary and trusted root certificates

The follow certificates are necessary and trusted root certificates in Microsoft Windows 2000 and later operating systems:

Issued to	Issued by	Serial number	Expiration date	Intended purposes	Friendly name	Status
Copyright (c) 1997 Microsoft Corp.	Copyright (c) 1997 Microsoft Corp.	01	12/30/1999	Time Stamping	Microsoft Timestamp Root	R
Microsoft Authenticode(tm) Root Authority	Microsoft Authenticode(tm) Root Authority	01	12/31/1999	Secure Email, Code Signing	Microsoft Authenticode(tm)Root	R
Microsoft Root Authority	Microsoft Root Authority	00c1008b3c3c8811d13ef663ecdf40	12/31/2020	<All>	Microsoft Root Authority	R
NO LIABILITY ACCEPTED, (c)97 VeriSign, Inc.	NO LIABILITY ACCEPTED, (c)97 VeriSign, Inc.	4a19d2388c82591ca55d735f155ddca3	1/7/2004	Time Stamping	VeriSign Time Stamping CA	R
VeriSign Commercial Software Publishers CA	VeriSign Commercial Software Publishers CA	03c78f37db9228df3cbb1aad82fa6710	1/7/2004	Secure Email, Code Signing	VeriSign Commercial Software Publishers CA	R
Thawte Timestamping CA	Thawte Timestamping CA	00	12/31/2020	Time Stamping	Thawte Timestamping CA	R

The follow certificate is also a necessary and trusted root certificate in Microsoft Windows XP and later operating systems:

Issued to	Issued by	Serial number	Expiration date	Intended purposes	Friendly name	Status
Microsoft Root Certificate Authority	Microsoft Root Certificate Authority	79ad16a14aa0a5ad4c7358f407132e65	5/9/2021	<All>	Microsoft Root Certificate Authority	R

As you may have noticed in the provided information, some of the certificates have expired. However, these certificates are necessary for backwards compatibility. Even if there is an expired trusted root certificate, anything that was signed with that certificate prior to the expiration date needs that trusted root certificate to be validated. As long as expired certificates are not revoked, it can be used to validate anything that was signed prior to its expiration.

For additional information about removing root certificates from the store, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

293819 How to remove a root certificate from the Trusted Root Store