What Can I Do If I Get An Empty "Client Authentication" Dialog Box When Accessing a Web Application That Can Use PKI Authentication?

Some Internet Explorer Windows users may get this dialog box if they don't have a PKI certificate. If this happens, you have several options:

Get a PKI certificate and use it to authenticate to the application (see Using PKI Secure Certificates at Dartmouth).
Click OK or Cancel in the dialog box (once per Web application session) and authenticate to the application using another method (if it supports alternatives such as Kerberos or Web Authentication).
Set Internet Explorer to not prompt for a certificate selection if you don't have one. To do this:
- Select Internet Options from the Tools menu.
- Click on the Security tab.
- Click on the Custom Level button.
- Scroll to the Don't prompt for client certificate selection when no certificates or only one certificate exists setting (in the Miscellaneous section).
- Click the Enable radio button.
- Click OK.
- If a Are you sure you want to change the security settings for this zone? dialog box is displayed, click Yes.
- Click OK in the Internet Options dialog box.

08/29/08