[Vpn-help] Problem with 2.1.5-rc5 on Vista 64bit

[Matthew Grooms]

Tilman Schröder wrote:
> Heyho,
> 
> I like this VPN client very much because it is easy to use ... however, 
> I am still waiting for the correct handling of default routes.
> 
> I installed 2.1.5-rc5 on my Vista 64 bit laptop and the installation 
> routine removed the old version of shrew. This worked fine until Windows 
> told me that the installation was perhaps not successful and I should 
> reinstall the program with the correct settings. I did this and now the 
> installer told me that there was one file missing while removing the 
> "old" version of the shrew client. Then the same error came up when 
> installing the client. From this time on (before rebooting) I had no 
> network connection anymore! I removed the shrew client, same error (file 
> missing). I removed the shrew miniport filters in the device manager, no 
> success!
> 
> Moreover, I cannot boot normally any longer, I always get a BSOD saying 
> something about an NDIS BUG. Every change after removing the client was 
> made in Windows' safe mode.
> 
> Reinstalling the new rc-5 in the safe mode solved the problem ... but I 
> do not think this behaviour was expected?
> 

Hi Tilman,

Certainly not. From my most recent testing, the 2.1.5 release version 
does not cause this popup box to appear. Enabling program compatibility 
will have a dramatically negative effect on the VPN Client installer.

The root of the problem is that using "program compatibility" defaults 
will cause the OS to lie about what version of windows is running. While 
this is benign for most applications, we install kernel drivers that are 
very specific to the target platform. If the OS reports Windows XP even 
though its running on Vista/7, we will attempt to install NDIS5 drivers 
which were never designed to work with the Vista/7 operating system. To 
make matters worse, the OS will proceed to install them because Vista/7 
is supposed to be backwards compatible with NDIS5 even though the native 
standard is NDIS6. However, there are 'exceptions' when using NDIS5 on 
these platforms, which is why we went though all the trouble of creating 
native NDIS6 driver in the first place. The bottom line is that you will 
have 2K/XP drivers installed on Vista/7 which quickly leads to a system 
crash ... not good.

So, in short, never attempt to install the Shrew Soft VPN client with 
compatibility settings enabled. It will very likely ruin your day.

-Matthew