Kernel Confusion

Computers tend to get slower over time, the more you use it, the faster this will happen. But is this true for hardware as well? In this case: smartcards? I didn’t believe it until I got my hands on a few cards from employees that complained about very slow read times. Our company enrolled smartcards for Direct Access usage (and I love this Windows Server 2008 R2 feature!).

vSEC:CMS Key Tool

In the logon screen, it took Windows nearly 45 seconds to read the slowest card and ask for the PIN. Wow! There was no evidence against the card reader, nor the other hardware, as a slow card was slow on all test systems.

But what can you do? Format C! And C stands for “card”. The simplest answers are the best! A short “bing” later, I found a tool named vSEC:CMS Key Tool, provided freely by Versatile Security. With it you can set the smartcard’s PIN and AdminPIN, unblock the user’s passcode and manage certificates. In this particular case, I deleted the original cert and reissued it. And guess what: as good (fast) as new!