PowerShell tip: Deleting certificates

31 Jul 2012 10:20 powershell

$certs = Get-ChildItem cert:\LocalMachine\My | where { $_.Subject –like 'CN=Victim*' }
foreach ($cert in $certs) {
    $store = Get-Item $cert.PSParentPath
    $store.Open('ReadWrite')
    $store.Remove($cert)
    $store.Close()
}

The first line finds certificates with the matching subject. The loop goes through those certificates, using .NET class library methods to delete them.

The clever bit is that Get-Item $cert.PSParentPath returns the X509Store object that is the certificate’s store.