VPN Binding Order Fix (ALL WINDOWS XP MACHINES!)
I have also posted this on Bruce Cowpers blog!
Some users were calling me with issues saying they couldn’t use outlook because the mail server was not found, also not being able to map network drives while connected to the VPN, yet the VPN on our ISA server looked fine?
They could however map the network drive with the according internal IP.
Right away I knew this was a DNS problem. But what was extremely puzzling, was that half the VPN users had no problem, and some couldn’t do anything.
More research into this and after looking over every single setting on my ISA firewall and checking the DNS servers I found that our DNS wasn’t the problem at all, but rather the binding order of my clients.
After checking the obvious Network Connections Advanced settings to view the binding order, the Remote Access Connections was at the top of the list. BUT if you compared this to your registry located here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Linkage
Under the BIND KEY “\Device\NdisWanIp” or other words “Remote Connections” was at the bottom of all other devices
to fix this simply cut and paste your “\Device\NdisWanIP” to the top of the list, close regedit, and reboot the system.
Or you can copy and paste the script below in a notepad, save it as bind.vbs, open command prmot, and Cscript bind.vbs.
YOU MUST REBOOT in order for this to take effect!
Sub Main()
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002 ‘ Root Node that we want in the registry
strComputer = “.” ‘ Computer Name “.” is equal to the local machine
Set StdOut = WScript.StdOut ‘ Setup the StdOut for writing
’StdOut just writes out to the command window
StdOut.WriteLine “——————— Executing ——————————”
’Here we’re getting a reference to a registry Object so that we can read/write from/to the registry
Set oReg = GetObject(“winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” & strComputer & “\root\default:StdRegProv”)
strKeyPath = “SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Linkage” ‘The Key Path
strValueName = “Bind” ‘The Value Inside the key that’s the multi string
’Get the list of VALUES from the registry
oReg.GetMultiStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, arrValues
Dim colNewVals ‘dictionary object used to store the new sorted values sorted
Set colNewVals = CreateObject(“Scripting.Dictionary”) ‘in the order that we want them to be written back to the registry
StdOut.WriteLine “This is the original array.”
For Each strValue In arrValues
StdOut.WriteLine strValue
Next
StdOut.WriteLine “”
flag = false
StdOut.WriteLine “Grab what we were looking for.”
For Each strValue In arrValues
If strValue = “\Device\NdisWanIp” Then
colNewVals.Add 0, strValue
flag = true
StdOut.WriteLine strValue
Exit For
End If
Next
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “Checking to make sure we found what we were looking for.”
If flag = false Then
StdOut.WriteLine “Nope exiting…”
StdOut.WriteLine”\Device\NdisWanIp not found.”
Exit Sub
End If
StdOut.WriteLine “Yep Continuing”
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “Read in the rest of the values.”
i = 1
For Each strValue In arrValues
If strValue <> “\Device\NdisWanIp” Then
colNewVals.Add i, strValue
i = i + 1
StdOut.WriteLine strValue
End If
Next
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “This is the new array.”
For Each strNewVal In colNewVals.Items
StdOut.WriteLine strNewVal
Next
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “Write the values back to the registry.”
oReg.SetMultiStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName,colNewVals.Items
End Sub
If interested, a cleaner and shorter version of the above script. I used parts of the script to solve a related problem, thanx for pointing me in the right direction!
const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
Dim ColNewVals()
bFound = False
strComputer = “.”
Set StdOut = WScript.StdOut
StdOut.WriteLine “——————— Executing ——————————”
Set oReg = GetObject(“winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” & strComputer & “\root\default:StdRegProv”)
strKeyPath = “SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Linkage”
strValueName = “Bind”
oReg.GetMultiStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName, arrValues
ReDim ColNewVals(Ubound(arrValues))
‘ Enumerate current order and filling a new array with new order
StdOut.WriteLine “This is the original array.”
i = 1
For Each strValue In arrValues
StdOut.WriteLine strValue
Select Case strValue
Case “\Device\NdisWanIp”
bFound = True
colNewVals(0) = strValue
Case Else
colNewVals(i) = strValue
i = i + 1
End Select
Next
‘ If the value has been found in the previous procedure, the new order will be written to the registry
‘ else it will tell the connection was not found.
If bFound then
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “This is the new array.”
For Each strNewVal In colNewVals
StdOut.WriteLine strNewVal
Next
StdOut.WriteLine “”
StdOut.WriteLine “Write the values back to the registry.”
‘ oReg.SetMultiStringValue HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, strValueName,colNewVals
ElseIf not bFound then
StdOut.WriteLine “\Device\NdisWanIp not found.”
End If
StdOut.WriteLine “——————— Finished ——————————”
Interesting article, i have bookmarked your blog for future referrence
I have had so many people contact me stating they couldn’t get this script to work, and it turns out copying and pasting this from wordpress is the issue. I have a zip file containing the VBS and a simple install.bat file that will fix the issues for you.
Please remember to reboot when you have applied the script.
http://www.vistanetworks.ca/VPN%20Binding%20Order%20fix.zip
Thank you,
this will solve my problem completely
Very useful solution! I’ve been dealing with this issue for a while.
Thanks
Any idea how to fix a similar issue in Windows 7? It’s the same symptoms, however instead of a list of Device\xxx under registry key HKLM\…\Tcpip\Linkage I get a list of GUIDs:
\Device\{947B316E-398A-466A-8BE8-67B4EB6984BF}
\Device\{B6E4AD2D-E924-44A5-A07D-111C9EB1373B}
\Device\{BE13FE63-2886-4EEB-BCDF-CF30CCD7293B}
\Device\{81E82621-BAD3-4862-9CF8-38779A93309B}
\Device\{529D9AB7-0668-48E7-9C1D-E9874EC03028}
\Device\{F008E096-C3D4-4D79-B5DB-0C57EF8A5A4E}
\Device\{E19FBB7C-C73A-474B-8203-163821663DF7}
Thanks!
Tim,
I had the same issue, but managed to figure it out. If you look at this registry key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network, you’ll see 4 keys that are GUIDs. I don’t think it matters which you choose, so expand the first one. This is a list of GUIDs that are all of the interfaces (physical, virtual, there are probably many of them). Under each there is a key called Connection and a variable Name, which is the name of the interface in the list of interface. This information allows you to identify the GUID of the VPN adapter, which you can then put at the top of the list in the Linkage key. Hope this helps.
James
Hi guys, very usefull script for Windows XP, but this problem still exist for dummy users on Windows 7…
Somebody can port the script for Windows 7 ?