November 23, 2006

Trouble with Vista and VPN?

Okay so I installed Vista today - looking quite good. However when I installed the NUS VPN client (provided by Cisco), it all went well, except when it came to connecting the damned thing - the drivers aren't compatible!! So I went googling to find a solution, as I knew even though it's normally these low level things that have issues after upgrades (my Intel wireless driver was another problem), Cisco would have had some sorta fix ready with Vista's official release soon (it's already RTM). After a while I came across this link: http://vpn.doit.wisc.edu/download/test/vpnclient-win-msi-4.8.01.0590-k9.exe
It's beta if I'm not mistaken but does the job well - there's only one problem - it's generic i.e. after you install it (you have to uninstall the NUS one first - it won't proceed with installation otherwise), you have to set up the connections, unlike the NUS specific one which is ready to go.

The easiest way to set up your profile is by importing the ones that NUS VPN already installed for you, therefore BEFORE you do anything else, i.e. before you install the new version, do this:

Copy these two files over to a location such as your desktop: "inside-nus.pcf" and "outside-nus.pcf" from "C:\Program Files\NUS-VPN\profiles" (or wherever you initially chose to install NUS VPN).

These two files are profiles that contain all the information to connect to NUS via VPN.

Next uninstall the NUS VPN client, it will prompt you to reboot - do so and then install the new client, it will prompt you to reboot again.

After installation and reboot, this is what you do:

Run the Cisco VPN client and click on Import icon.

Browse to where you saved those two profiles and import them one after the other.

Voila! That's all, you should be able to connect to NUS VPN just like before :D

No probs yet :)

November 18, 2006

Having connection problems on campus?

Okay, so we all know, NUS' internet of late has been crap..well more like shithole...so much for world class. I've heard and experienced bad or no connectivity and at a time like this (exam time) it can be quite distressing and frustrating!

Nevermind I think I've found a workaround to the problem. I'm not too sure what's the problem, but from the looks of it, it's either the DHCP or duplicate IPs or something along the lines of that.

So if you can't access the internet, this is what you can try:

  1. Use VPN - if this connects - great! Else:
  2. Go to Start --> Run...
  3. Type "cmd" without quotes and then Enter - should take you to Command Prompt
  4. Type the following commands IN ORDER followed by the Enter key each time:
  • ipconfig /flushdns (followed by Enter)
  • ipconfig /release (followed by Enter)
  • ipconfig /registerdns (followed by Enter)
  • ipconfig /renew (followed by Enter)

This should solve your problems try connecting to VPN and start surfing - if not...oh well....just suck it up I guess :D