Cisco VPN & Windows 8.1 Reason 442: Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter

Cisco VPN & Windows 8.1 Reason 442: Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter

When I recently tried to install the Cisco VPN Client on my Windows 8 laptop, the installation went OK but all my attempts to connect to our office network (which is based around a Cisco UC540 unit, part of the UC500 unified communications series) failed with an error:

Reason 442: Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter

I tried compatibility mode, running as an administrator and also the registry fix found here:

  1. Click Start and type regedit in the Search field and hit enter
  2. Navigate to HKLM > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services > CVirtA
  3. Find the String Value called DisplayName
  4. Right click and select Modify from the context menu.
  5. In Value data, remove @oemX.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;. The Value data should only contain Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows.
  6. Click Ok.
  7. Close Registry Editor.
  8. Retry your Cisco VPN Client connection.

Unfortunately this didn’t work for me either, I tried a restart, double checked but no luck.  At this point I decided to give ShrewSoft VPN a go, it’s a free download from here: http://www.shrew.net/download/vpn, although a professional version is available with more features.

The installation went through with out any hitches and best of all, you can import Cisco VPN Client profiles straight in to it, I imported mine, entered my login and hey presto – it worked straight out the box.

 

 

Bob McKay

About Bob McKay

Bob is a Founder of Seguro Ltd, a full time father and husband, part-time tinkerer-with-wires, coder, Muay Thai practitioner, builder and cook. Big fan of equality, tolerance and co-existence.

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