@ Louis: I feel your pain. This is a total sham and we ought to put pressure on Microsoft to alleviate this problem.

There’s absolutely no justification for requiring a $400 code certificate to qualify for a compatibility logo! Signing has nothing to do with compatibility. I can understand requiring a piece of software BE signed, for the user’s sake, but to require a SPECIFIC (and the absolute most expensive) certificate is a complete and utter outrage.

Spending this kind of money is not even an option for me. I can barely justify the $75 for a Tucows/Comodo cert, but thank goodness there is this option.

You would think MS would want to encourage people to meet logo requirements, not scare them away by making it some sort of elites-only club.

*vent steam*

Several years ago, I checked out all the Code Signing Vendors. I settled on Comodo and paid them their $99 annual fee. The next year I was kicking myself that I didn’t get it for 3 years, because I found they had raised it to $179.

I don’t think the price you list for Comodo is correct. I believe it is still $180 for 1 year (down to $167 per year for 3 years). The “$119.95″ link you provide to their Certificate page shows me the prices I was used to, and nowhere do I see the price you state. I

But first of all, thank you very much for the links to the resellers. I for one will be very happy to pay $75 a year to Tucows. I already use Tucows for their dirt-cheap domain registration.

Now, with regards to the Microsoft ‘works with Vista’ program: I attempted to sign up with when it had a couple of months left to go. I was ready to go through the work to make my application, still in alpha testing, completely Vista compatible. It would have been painful, but worth it to me to get the Certified for Vista label.

I already had Comodo as my digital certificate provider. As you know Windows computers recognizes Comodo and treats it as a known commodity. What Microsoft required was a digital certificate to prove —whatever— just so I can join their program. Okay, so that’s not so bad, but JUST TO JOIN their “free-to-join” program, they required I buy that “special” $99 Verisign digital certificate. Comodo wasn’t accepted for this.

Well, I’m sorry, but that p–ssed me off enough that I sent in my complaints and received the same “sorry, but you need Verisign” answers with no adequate explanation as to why.

But your little story above, really helps to clarify all this for me. Thank you.

This was only one of the hoops and barriers in Microsoft’s Vista Logo program. But it was the straw that broke my camel’s back.

It’s no wonder why Microsoft didn’t get anywhere near the signups they expected for their logo program.

I hadn’t heard of globalsign. At $229 per year they are positioned between Comodo and Thawte. I couldn’t find out from their website exactly which versions of Windows their certificates are valid for.