ProtectSection with RsaProtectedConfigurationProvider where does the Key go?

User level keys are stored at

\Documents and Settings{UserName}\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA

Machine-level keys at

\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys

Yours is a user-level key.

I had a scenario where I needed to grant a local service account access to the RsaProtectedConfigurationProvider key on a Windows 2012 server.

In the end, granting access on C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys did the trick.