I bitch about Windows on occasion, but I have to give it credit for System Restore, which saved my ass today.
Some Cisco VPN software which I was trying to install to help a client completely f*cked all my network access on my primary workstation, effectively rendering it useless. Not only that, but it refused to uninstall (hang), or disable (hang) in any way, even from safe mode, and appeared to install no useful tools or documentation with which to diagnose said problems, while disabling all other useful diagnostics (ipconfig returned nothing, device manager claimed both Cisco and regular network devices were fine, all other configuration tools just hang). After much swearing & experimentation I remembered System Restore, which I’d never had cause to use before, since I’ve never got myself into such a dead end before, but which worked like a charm.
I’ve used Window’s own VPN connections before and they’ve been fine. Cisco though, what a PITA – I’ll definitely think twice about trying to use that again. That combined with my server’s PSU mucking about today has not made this one of the most stress-free days. I guess it’s karma for having a good day yesterday.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I had just the same experiance at work with Cisco VPN software that we’re using to connect to our client. The solution that our partner company working on the same project had “sold” us is installing all VPN software (Cisco, Checkpoint, etc.) in VM. Cisco VPN has a nasty “feature” of blocking all other networks (hence no internet when working with VPN). The XP in VirtualBox solves the problem completely for us – we can access internet from host, VPN from VM and (with VirtualBox shared folders) exchange files between host and VM.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Thanks – I actually expected to lose other connections when the VPN is connected (that’s normal, it’s to prevent breaches via bridging), but I didn’t expect to lose all sight of my network devices just for installing the software!