Your CAC certificates are used for logging in, decrypting emails, and digitally signing documents. To make things faster, the computer where you inserted your CAC keeps a copy for its use. We call this caching. When you get a new CAC, new certificates are issued for your new CAC but the computer still keeps the cached copies of the old ones. This is why sometimes errors come up when you are trying to open an encrypted email or when you are trying to digitally sign something; the computer is still using the copy of your old certificates and is looking for your old CAC. To fix this, you must delete the cached copies of the old certificates from your computers. Follow the instructions below to do so. Please note that these instructions are for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system.
- Type “Internet Options” in the Start Menu’s search bar.
- Open the “Internet Options” control panel from the search results.
- Click the “Content” tab in the Internet Properties window that opens and then click the “Certificates” button.
- In the Certificates window that opens, click the certificates that are not yours or that are expired, and then click the “Remove” button.
Now that you have deleted the cached certificates, you may need to download a full copy of the certificate that doesn't look for the old CAC to be able to open old, encrypted emails. To do that, please see Downloading Old Email Certificates.