Ed covers some 64-bit Vista questions related to memory use, and VPNs. Keep reading →

Consider the following scenario. You use a virtual private network (VPN) to connect a Windows Vista-based computer to your corporate network. After you connect to the corporate network, you experience an issue with your computer, and you contact your corporate helpdesk to resolve the issue. You provide the VPN IP address to the helpdesk agent. In this scenario, the helpdesk agent cannot use the Offer Remote Assistance feature to connect to your computer.

On a Windows Vista computer, you are unable to establish a connection to the VPN server. The following symptoms occur:

1. After you enter the username and password for the VPN connection, it tries to connect for a while then the error message occurs:
   

   Failed to connect to [connectionname]

2. If you create a new VPN connection, it shows as a Dial-up connection.
3. This event is logged in the Application event log.

   Log Name:      Application
   Source:        RasClient
   Date:          mm/dd/yyyy [time]
   Event ID:      20227
   Task Category: None
   Level:         Error
   Keywords:      Classic
   User:          N/A
   Computer:      [computername]
   Description:
   CoID={6ADB8BA2-868E-4406-88CF-FFFBFDAD6684}: The user [domain]\[user] dialed a connection named [ConnectionName] which has failed. The error code returned on failure is 609.

On a Windows Vista-based client computer, you create many virtual private network (VPN) connections. In this situation, the Connect to a network dialog box takes a long time to appear when you perform one of the following actions:

• Click Start, and then click Connect To
• Right-click the network icon in the taskbar, and then click Connect to a network

Virtual Private Network: A private communications network often used by companies or organizations to communicate confidentially over a public network.

You are connected to a remote network over a virtual private network (VPN) connection from Windows Vista. However, every time that you try to access a local resource on another computer, you are prompted for authentication. You expect that stored credentials for the resource that you are trying to access will be used for local access.

On a computer that is running Windows Vista, you try to establish a dial-up virtual private network (VPN) connection that uses Extensible Authentication Protocol-Transport Layer Security (EAP-TLS) for authentication.

If there are no user certificates on the computer, you may receive the following error message:

Error: 0×80420100: There was an unknown error.

Consider the following scenario:

• On a Windows Vista-based computer, you establish a dial-up connection to connect to the Internet.
• You establish a virtual private network (VPN) connection through a dial-up connection.

In this scenario, the VPN credentials are not cached the first time that the VPN connection is established.

On a Windows Vista-based computer, when you try to connect to Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio by using a virtual private network (VPN) connection, you receive an error message that resembles the following:

The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server Connection

Note: This issue does not occur on a Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)-based computer in the same environment.

On the computer that hosts the SQL Server role, the following events are logged:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSSQLSERVER
Event Category: (4)
Event ID: 17806
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: Computer
Description: SSPI handshake failed with error code 0x8009030c while establishing a connection with integrated security; the connection has been closed. [CLIENT: ClientIPAdress]
For more information, see Help and Support Center at go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Failure Audit
Event Source: MSSQLSERVER
Event Category: (4)
Event ID: 18452
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: Computer
Description: Login failed for user. The user is not associated with a trusted SQL Server connection. [CLIENT:ClientIPAdress]
For more information, see Help and Support Center at go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

If you enable debug logging for the Netlogon service on the authenticating server, the following entry is logged in the in the Netlogon.log file:

[LOGON] SamLogon: Network logon of Computer\User from Computer Entered
[CRITICAL] NlPrintRpcDebug: Could not get EEInfo for I_NetLogonSamLogonEx: 1761 (may be legitimate for 0xc0000064) (err 0xc0000064 = STATUS_NO_SUCH_USER)
[LOGON] SamLogon: Network logon of Computer\User from Computer Returns 0xC000006A (err 0xC000006A= STATUS_WRONG_PASSWORD)

Note: Computer is a placeholder for the name of the Windows Vista-based computer. Also, User is a placeholder for the user account that you use to log on to the computer.

This entry indicates that Windows Vista uses the Windows Vista-based computer credentials for authentication instead of using the domain credentials.

Note: In different network environments, the following servers can be authenticating servers:

• A Routing and Remote Access server
• An Internet Authentication Service (IAS) server

You cannot connect a computer that is running Windows Vista to a Cisco ASA Series VPN server by using a virtual private network (VPN) connection that is based on the “Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol with IPsec” (L2TP/IPsec) protocol. This problem occurs if another Windows Vista-based computer is already connecting to the VPN server through a L2TP/IPsec-based VPN connection. You cannot connect to the VPN server until the other computer disconnects from the VPN server.

This behavior does not occur on a computer that is running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.