Article ID: 928833 - Last Review: December 8, 2006 - Revision: 1.1

The application may crash, Visual Studio may crash, or you may receive an error message when you develop or run a Windows Workflow Foundation-based application on a computer that has FIPS-compliant algorithms enabled

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SYMPTOMS

When you develop or run a Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation-based application on a computer that has Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) compliant algorithms enabled, you may experience any of the following symptoms:
  • The application crashes, and you receive the following error message:
    Unhandled Exception: System.InvalidOperationException: This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms.
  • When you debug the application, Microsoft Visual Studio crashes.
  • You receive the following build error message when you try to compile a project that contains an Extensible Object Markup Language (XOML) workflow object:
    Compilation failed. This implementation is not part of the Windows Platform FIPS validated cryptographic algorithms.
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CAUSE

This issue occurs because Windows Workflow Foundation uses the MD5CryptoServiceProvider class to provide non-secure hashing of a string to a unique key. The MD5CryptoServiceProvider class does not support FIPS compliance.
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WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, disable the FIPS encryption level. You can use the Group Policy Object. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Click Start, click Run, type gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
  2. Expand Computer Configuration, expand Windows Settings, expand Security Settings, expand Local Policies, and then click Security Options.
  3. In the right pane, double-click System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing, click Disable, and then click OK.
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STATUS

This behavior is by design.
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MORE INFORMATION

For more information about the GPO setting for System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
811833  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811833/ ) The effects of enabling the "System cryptography: Use FIPS compliant algorithms for encryption, hashing, and signing" security setting in Windows XP and later versions
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APPLIES TO
  • Windows Workflow Foundation
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Keywords: 
kbtshoot kbprb KB928833
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