Cisco VPN Client on Windows 7 x64

I recently had my Vista x86 system go belly up on me, which was actually perfect timing, with the public beta of SharePoint 2010 around the corner, I have a nice new HP ProBook 4710s with Dual Core Centrino x64 2.5GHz Processors, 8G of RAM, 500G SATA drive, 2G video memory, and other goodness.

Since the new laptop arrived yesterday however, I needed to hop back into some client work, which requires me to use the [cue eerie music] Cisco VPN client. I’ve had trouble with the Cisco VPN client on virtually every machine I have ever used. This was no different. There are numerous work-arounds for getting this to run, including using the XP Mode Virtual PC, uninstalling the NDIS drivers, installing the client, repairing the system, etc. And there are also a few 3rd Party VPN clients that are said to work as well.

My luck was with the Shrew Soft VPN Client. However, be warned, do NOT try to install any of the “STABLE” releases. My luck landed on the 2.1.5-rc-4 Development version, dated 10/1/09. [direct link: http://www.shrew.net/download/vpn/vpn-client-2.1.5-rc-4.exe]. The STABLE releases all BSOD’ed my laptop with various driver issues, one being the NDIS driver mentioned above.

Hope this helps someone out… I’ve been at this for hours now this morning.