I have been early adapter of Windows 8. since the dev preview in Sept 2011. close to 9 months and we still have not seen the RTM which would probably be out in October for general public. So apart from bragging my geekiness i try to earn my bread n coffee using coding. One of days i brought some work to home to leverage Work from Home advantage but was disappointed to see Cisco VPN client was not working with Windows 8. It displayed an error while i was trying to connect to my corporate network:

“The VPN Client driver has encountered an error.” or “Cannot initiate VPN.”

Some forums misguided me VPNClient does not works on Windows 8. Also to make sure i tried to dog the old dieing OS on my machine that was Windows 7 and found out VPN Client working there. This narrowed down my problem to Windows 8 vs Cisco VPNClient compatibility. After a lot of searching digging mining turned out there is a quick and easy fix for this.

1. From the Start screen type “regedit” or Windows Key+R shortcut and type “regedit” to launch the Registry Editor.

2. Give it admin rights when UAC prompts.

3. In the registry editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vpnva

4. Double-click on the DisplayName key, and remove the INF information from the display name so the modified version appears as Cisco AnyConnect VPN Virtual Miniport Adapter for Windows x64. (or the 32-bit / x86 equivalent)

5. Click OK. Close Registry Editor and launch the AnyConnect client. The connection should work normally.

No reboot required and i am connected to my corporate Network. Thanks Tom for the tip.

6 thoughts on “Resolve Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client error on Windows 8”

  1. The Software is available in the Cisco.com SW Center for any customer with a SMARTnet (support) contract. Contact your IT department and they should be able to easily get you access to either version.

  2. with version 2.4, I am unable to connect with the specified resolution. Hope the newer version could solve. But…

  3. New home laptop with Windows 8. Having issues connecting into my work until I updated the reg key as listed above.

    Worked for me. Many thanks.

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