Supported Certificate Formats

Microsoft® Certificate Server has the ability to issue the following types of certificates:

X.509 v1 and v3 SSL-compatible client authentication certificate. This client authentication certificate identifies a client and is used by servers to authenticate a client that requests server access.
X.509 v3 SSL-compatible server authentication certificate. This server authentication certificate identifies a server and is used by clients to authenticate a server that the client wants to access.
S/MIME certificate. This certificate is used by clients for secure e-mail under the S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) protocol.
In addition to these certificates, Certificate Server can also be used to issue other X.509 certificates such as SET (Secure Electronic Transacation) certificates by writing a custom policy module.
Note "Server authentication certificate" and "server certificate" as well as "client authentication certificate" and "client certificate" are interchangeable terms.