Cisco VPN Client and Windows 8

Ok, so this one is not Gentran related. Like most people today I was forced to purchase a Windows 8 laptop, not because I wanted it but because that was all that BestBuy had in an i5 configuration.

The issue was getting the Cisco VPN Client to work on Windows 8 and it fails with the error: "Reason 442: Failed to Enable Virtual Adapter". I found 2 official answer from the Cisco website:

1. Cisco 64bit VPN Client does not support Windows 8.
2. Contact Cisco support.

Neither of which are answers that are acceptable to me, so I did a lot more rooting around on google before I found a work around that a guy calling himself "Youbrown" posted on learningnetwork.cisco.com. 

Here is the post. All I know is it worked like a champ for me.

Just to update, the legacy Cisco VPN client (5.0.07.0440 for x64, 5.0.07.0410 for x86) is working for some people. You need to apply a small workaround as explained below –

  

• Open Registry editor by typing regedit in Run prompt
• Browse to the Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\CVirtA
• Select the DisplayName to modify, and remove the leading characters from the value data up to "%;" i.e.
• For x86, change the value data from something like "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter” to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter”
• For x64, change the value data from something like "@oem8.inf,%CVirtA_Desc%;Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows” to "Cisco Systems VPN Adapter for 64-bit Windows”
• Try connecting again