Windows Certificate Locations

In the context of Windows PowerShell and certificate management, Cert:\LocalMachine\AuthRoot and Cert:\LocalMachine\Root refer to two different certificate stores.

Cert:\LocalMachine\Root:

This represents the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" store for the local machine.
Certificates in this store are trusted as root certificates, meaning they are considered authoritative and can be used to verify the authenticity of other certificates in the certificate chain.
Root certificates are typically used to validate the digital signatures of other certificates, including SSL/TLS certificates used for secure communications.
Cert:\LocalMachine\AuthRoot:

This represents the "Third-Party Root Certification Authorities" store for the local machine.
Certificates in this store are also trusted as root certificates, but they are provided by third-party or external entities.
AuthRoot is often used to store additional root certificates that are not included by default in the operating system, and these may be added by various applications or services.
In summary, both locations store root certificates, but Cert:\LocalMachine\Root typically contains certificates that are included with the operating system, while Cert:\LocalMachine\AuthRoot may contain additional root certificates added by third-party applications or services. The distinction is important for managing and understanding the trust hierarchy in the context of certificate validation.