Certificate password length in Windows Server 2003

When using certificates on Windows Server 2003, the length of the certificate's password is restricted to at most 31 characters. This can cause issues when using certificates created in other operating systems.

For example, if a certificate is created in Windows 7 that has a password of 32 or more characters in length, Windows Server 2003 will be unable to open this certificate. Attempting to use it will return the error:

Cannot open certificate store: The specified network password is not correct. (56)

In order to prevent this issue from occurring you must ensure that certificate passwords do not exceed 31 characters in length.