Cisco VPN (IPSec) support on 64 bit platforms

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I like Windows 7 x64, but I hate Cisco’s lack of support for the IPSec protocol on 64-bit platforms. Many of our customers use IPSec and the Cisco VPN Client – therefore I cannot connect to the customer’s network via IPSec VPN tunnels on my primary laptop

Until today

A colleague of mine recommended Shrew Soft VPN Client. It’s free and works like a charm. It’s a lot faster connecting and negotiating to the remote network than Cisco VPN Client, so fast in fact, that I initially thought that the connection failed. I’ve been using it for a couple of days, connecting to multiple customers, without any issues.

Why does Cisco implement a VPN client for x64 platforms?

I guess it is a money making scheme. They want to push their new Cisco VPN boxes and their new Cisco AnyConnect VPN client (expensive!), which makes use of SSL VPN.

Greg Ferro has another critical article Early Death of Cisco VPN Client Forces VPN License Fees with more details about Cisco’s SSL VPN.

I know of a commercial IPSec VPN client from NCP that works fine with Cisco IPSec VPN tunnels, but the steep price tag of $144 USD + taxes is too much.

Update May 31, 2010: Cisco has released an x64 version of their client tools for Windows 7 with IPSec protocol support. Either my money making scheme hypotheses is wrong or Cisco feared the wrath of my blog readers

Anders Lybecker is an chief architect at Kring Development A/S, a consultancy firm in Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds a degree in software engineering specializing in software development. His primary expertises are the Microsoft .Net framework and SQL Server which he has been working with since the start of this century! He enjoys discussing technical topics, teaching and speaking at conferences.

Tags: Security, Useful tools, VPN, Windows 7

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 7:58 pm and is filed under Useful tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Cisco VPN (IPSec) support on 64 bit platforms”

VPN Haus says:

January 20, 2010 at 4:32 pm

Informative post Anders. A lot of people are frustrated with Cisco’s lack of support for the 64-bit IPsec client. Its good to see you giving people different options. We also write on this topic, check out http://vpnhaus.ncp-e.com/.
Anders Lybecker says:

January 25, 2010 at 8:09 am

Thanks.
I’ve been using 64-bit OS for more than a year.
My initial solution was a virtual machine running 32-bit OS with Cisco’s 32-bit IPSec client, which I used as a jump host to connect to my clients.

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