Expired Certificates

My computer got tired or something. It needed to be restarted by unpluggin the power. Not my prefered way of restarting...anyway I put it in safe mode when I restarted and ran ASquared Spybot and CCleaner. Nothing was found. Except now when I go to sites I frequent like hotmail and MySpace it says the Certificates are expired or out of date. It gives me the option of making them an exception. But these warnings spook me the way they are worded so came here to post.


Hotmail gave me :

login.live.com uses an invalid security certificate.

The certificate will not be valid until 6/18/2008 7:00 PM.

(Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate)

MySpace says:
secure.myspace.com uses an invalid security certificate.

The certificate will not be valid until 12/15/2008 2:47 PM.

(Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate)

These are links I use all the time. SO ?????

It does say that it may be temporary but still? Do I make them the exception or try again in a couple days? Help!

It's nothing to worry about at familiar sites. Here's what you need to check:

1. From the dates you have showing in your error messages, the date on your computer may be wrong. Make sure the time and date on your computer are correct. To do that, either double-click on your computer time in the lower right system tray to get the Date and Time Properties window, or right-click on the time and select "Adjust date/time" from the popup window that appears. If Date and/or Time are wrong, correct them and see if that fixes the problem.

2. Cleck to see if you have the latest root certificates. To do that, you need to go to Windows Update in an administrator (or owner) account:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Click on the Custom button. When you get to "Review and Install Updates", look in the left-most column of your screen. There you will see "Select by Product." Under that, select the Windows option. In the large pane on the right you will see options which you can select for downloading and updating. Select the one that says "Update for Root Certificates" if it is there and run the update.

Ok I was living in April of 2007. I had to adjust the time yesterday did not even think of looking at the date.

THanks again!

If you have any further problems with the time / date function or certificate dates replace the bios battery. The battery should have maintained the correct time / date even with the power cut off. It could be that only the Windows time stamp was effected and the bios is fine, but further issues would be an indication of battery problems. You might also be in need of a bios flash update.

Cool. I will do that. Thank you. Have it pulled out most of the time right now. Heard that was better for it. Is it?

Some newer systems maintain a trickle 3.5 v to the motherboard even when off, but most built before last year rely upon the battery to maintain user settings and the time stamp which gets passed to the OS. If you're happy with the default bios settings being reinstated every time you boot then the battery won't make much difference in a home system. There are also boot failure logs kept in the bios to diagnose boot up problems, but it takes a fair technician to get to them and understand them. I don't see any advantage in pulling the battery as the wear on the system from that low voltage in extremely minimal. Just the hassle of resetting the system time when you shut down is enough to warrant leaving the battery in place. There is also the risk of shock damage every time you touch the inside of your computer. Without proper grounding technique you could blow the heart of your system with very little effort. My vote is to leave the battery in place.

Oh I will have to put it back in. There are so many people saying so many things that it is hard to sort through them all. I heard it wears down the battery when inserted all the time. I leave my laptop plugged in most of the time. Just the other day when i posted this did I unplug it because it stalled in shut down. Just curious...

I'm sorry Holly. I didn't understand that we were dealing with a laptop. I was talking about the little battery, about the size of a quarter, in desktop computers. You are probably correct in removing the main battery from a laptop when it is on AC. My bad for not asking the right questions.

no prob I do not always make myself clear and assume everyone already knows what I am talking about. Besides when I am freaked out about an issue my brain is going 90 miles an hour and my fingers do not keep up...or as my boss says sometimes Holly what are you talking about? Thanks Novice