Composer Install Fails With “Certificate Verify Failed” on Windows: The Certificate File Isn’t the Problem, Whatever Is Reading Your Traffic Is

What you already tried	Why it didn’t help
Every fix ChatGPT suggested	They all point PHP at a certificate list. The installer already found yours at C:\xampp\apache\bin\cacert.pem.
Downloaded the newest certificates	A new list only helps when the site’s real certificate reaches PHP. Yours is being replaced on the way.
Thought about formatting the laptop	Not needed. The laptop is fine. Something running on it, or the network it’s on, is the cause.

The error says "certificate verify failed," and the installer screen above it tells you why. It found cacert.pem, read php.ini, and still couldn't verify the connection. That happens when antivirus software or a school or office network sits between PHP and getcomposer.org and swaps in its own certificate. "This only happens to me" is the clue: the same laptop on a phone hotspot, or with the antivirus web shield paused, usually installs Composer in one go. Below, in order, are the two-minute check, the real fixes, and a manual install that works even if nothing else does.

What the Three Error Lines Are Saying

• The "https://getcomposer.org/versions" file could not be downloaded: the very first thing the installer does is fetch a small text file. It never got that far.
• error:0A000086:SSL routines::certificate verify failed: OpenSSL, the part of PHP that handles HTTPS, got a certificate it can’t trace back to anyone in cacert.pem.
• Failed to enable crypto and Failed to open stream: the knock-on effects. No trusted connection, so no encryption, so no download.

The installer printing C:\xampp\apache\bin\cacert.pem and C:\xampp\php\php.ini is it showing you what it used. Both were found. The certificate file is not missing and not the fault.

Find Out Who Is Signing Your Connections

Open Command Prompt and run this one line. It asks getcomposer.org for its certificate and prints who issued it.

C:\xampp\php\php.exe -r "$c=stream_context_create(['ssl'=>['capture_peer_cert'=>true,'verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false]]); $f=fopen('https://getcomposer.org/versions','r',false,$c); $p=stream_context_get_params($f); print_r(openssl_x509_parse($p['options']['ssl']['peer_certificate'])['issuer']);"

What a clean connection shows
Array
(
    [C] => US
    [O] => Let's Encrypt
    [CN] => R11
)

• Issuer says Let’s Encrypt, or another public name you’d expect from a website: the connection is clean. Skip to Step 3 and refresh cacert.pem.
• Issuer says Kaspersky, ESET, Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Norton, McAfee, Fortinet, Zscaler, Sophos, or your university’s name: that’s your culprit. Go to Step 2.
• The verify_peer=false in that line is only there so the check can run at all. Don’t use it for the real install.

Fix the Interception: Pause the Shield or Trust Its Certificate

If It’s Your Antivirus

1. Open the antivirus and find the setting called Web Protection, HTTPS scanning, Encrypted connections scanning or Web Shield. The name changes by product.
2. Turn it off for 10 minutes.
3. Run the Composer installer again.
4. Turn the shield back on afterwards.

If you’d rather keep it on, add the antivirus’s root certificate to PHP’s list instead:

1. Press Win + R, type certmgr.msc, press Enter.
2. Open Trusted Root Certification Authorities → Certificates and find the one named after your antivirus.
3. Right-click it → All Tasks → Export → choose Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) → save it as C:\xampp\antivirus-root.cer.
4. Append it to the certificate file PHP uses:

type C:\xampp\antivirus-root.cer >> C:\xampp\apache\bin\cacert.pem

If It’s the University Network

• The quickest proof is to connect the laptop to your phone’s hotspot and run the installer. If it works there, the campus network is inspecting HTTPS.
• Install Composer over the hotspot. It’s a 3 MB download.
• To make it work on campus too, ask IT for their root certificate file (a .cer or .crt) and append it with the same type ... >> command above.

Point PHP at a Fresh cacert.pem

Do this once anyway. XAMPP’s bundled certificate list can be years old, and an expired root in it causes the same error on a clean network.

1. Download the current list from https://curl.se/ca/cacert.pem in your browser.
2. Save it as C:\xampp\php\extras\ssl\cacert.pem. Make the folder if it isn’t there.
3. Open C:\xampp\php\php.ini in Notepad and find these two lines. Remove the ; at the start if there is one, and set the path:

INI · C:\xampp\php\php.ini
curl.cainfo = "C:\xampp\php\extras\ssl\cacert.pem"
openssl.cafile = "C:\xampp\php\extras\ssl\cacert.pem"

4. Save the file. Close every Command Prompt window and open a new one, so PHP reads the change.
5. Confirm PHP sees it:

C:\xampp\php\php.exe -r "print_r(openssl_get_cert_locations());"

The two lines that matter
[default_cert_file] => C:\xampp\php\extras\ssl\cacert.pem
[ini_cafile] => C:\xampp\php\extras\ssl\cacert.pem

• If you appended an antivirus certificate in Step 2, append it to this new file as well.

Test the Download Before Running the Installer Again

C:\xampp\php\php.exe -r "echo substr(file_get_contents('https://getcomposer.org/versions'), 0, 60);"

What you should see
{"stable":[{"path":"/download/2.9

• If text comes back, the connection is trusted and the installer will work. Run Composer-Setup.exe again.
• If you still see certificate verify failed, Step 1 will tell you which signer is still missing from the file.

Install Composer by Hand When You Need It Working Today

This skips the installer’s download entirely. The browser already trusts your antivirus or campus certificate, so it can fetch the file PHP can’t.

1. In your browser, download https://getcomposer.org/download/latest-stable/composer.phar.
2. Make a folder C:\composer and move composer.phar into it.
3. In the same folder, create a file called composer.bat with this one line:

Batch · C:\composer\composer.bat
@C:\xampp\php\php.exe "C:\composer\composer.phar" %*

4. Add C:\composer to your PATH: press Win, type environment variables, open Edit the system environment variables → Environment Variables, pick Path under your user, click Edit → New, paste C:\composer, OK everything.
5. Open a new Command Prompt and check:

composer --version

What you should see
Composer version 2.9.x 2026-xx-xx

• From here composer require and composer install work the same as with the official installer.
• Those commands download packages over HTTPS too. If they hit the same error, Steps 2 and 3 are still needed. The manual install only gets Composer itself onto the laptop.

The Fix You Will See Online That You Should Skip

• composer config -g disable-tls true, or --disable-tls on the installer, turns off certificate checking. It makes the error go away by letting anyone on the network hand you a tampered package. Composer’s own documentation calls it a last resort for a reason.
• Setting verify_peer = false in a script is the same thing one level down.
• Formatting the laptop won’t change the antivirus you reinstall or the network you connect to. The error comes straight back.

Why It Looks Like It Only Happens to You

• Classmates on the same network who don’t get the error are probably running a different antivirus, or none, or installed Composer at home.
• Browsers don’t show the problem because Windows trusts the antivirus certificate system-wide. PHP keeps its own separate trust list in cacert.pem, and nobody added the antivirus to that one.
• That split is the whole story. Once PHP’s list includes the same signer Windows already trusts, the error is gone for good.