Moving an SSL certificate from one Windows Server to another — because you’re migrating a site with that cert to a new server, and either don’t want to wait on your cert provider for a reissue, or the current cert still has plenty of life left and reissuing would just waste it.
Windows Servers make this genuinely straightforward. Here’s the path from Windows Server 2008 R2 / IIS 7.5 to Windows Server 2016 / IIS 10 — well-trodden and compatible:
- Export the SSL cert from the original server installation.
- Import the exported cert into the new server.
Once imported, you’ll find it in the IIS Server Certificates list, ready to bind to your IIS website.
After a successful migration, stop using the SSL on the original server — unless your certificate’s licence explicitly allows running it in more than one place. Worth checking before assuming that’s fine, rather than finding out from your certificate provider that it wasn’t.
