To adjust the CRL and AIA distribution point there are at least threechoices to do it. The most familiar way to change the distribution point might be through the CA MMC user interface. The second way is to directly change the registry key CACertPublicationURLs or CRLPublicationURLs with regedit.exe. Alternatively, you can use certutil -setreg to change these keys in the registry.

While having full editing control over the multi-valued registry key, you may miss an edit button in the UI to conveniently change an existing entry without retyping the full URL.

Only very few people are aware that you can use a copy/paste trick to overcome the missing edit button. Here are the steps to copy an existing CRL or AIA entry and create a new one:

1. Open the Certification Authority MMC snap-in.


2. Open the CA properties.


3. Go to the Extensions tab.


4. Select the entry that you want to copy from the list of available CRL or AIA entries.


5. Press <CTRL>+<C> to copy the entry into the clip-board.


6. Click the Add… button and press <CTRL>+<V>. The paste operation is certainly not limited to the Add Location window. Once the URL has been copied into the clipboard it can be pasted everywhere.


7. Change the distribution point as appropriate.