VeriSign Organizational Certificate Digital ID

In chapter 13 of Advanced Windows Debugging we discussed the process by which a company can sign up for Windows Error Reporting. The WER service is a great mechanism to gauge the health of your application in the wild. It also allows you access to valuable information that can be used to debug problems postmortem. One of the requirements for establishing an account with WER is to obtain a code signing digital ID. While it is recommended practice to obtain ownership of code using this digital ID it also costs right around $400 to obtain. To remove the pricing obstacle and allow more companies the chance to participate in WER, VeriSign is now offering what is called an organizational Digital ID for the low cost of $99. This digital ID is used only as a mechanism to establish a WER account and cannot be used to sign binaries. Another limitation is that hardware submissions are not allowed using this digital ID. Even in light of these limitations, it is a great way to get on board with WER for a relatively low cost.

More details on digital certificates for WER can be found here:

http://www.verisign.com/code-signing/msft-organizational-certificates/index.html