There seems to be an issue with the Windows VPN Client at the moment as I’ve now had multiple reports of users from home where the Windows 10 VPN client won’t connect.

When clicking to connect to the VPN from the wireless/VPN menu from the system tray, rather than prompting for a username & password, or connecting up if you have your credentials saves, you just get the blue spinning wheel and this doesn’t stop:

It’s not yet apparent to me why this has become an issue, but presumably a Windows update has caused this. I had a bulk of users with the issue last year, then had a small resurgence of this again recently at different locations. This is not quite a fix but a quick workaround to get the user back online until further investigation can take place:

The Fix / Workaround

• On the desktop, right click and go to New > Shortcut, then enter the following:

rasphone -d "VPN connection name"

• Click Next, and name the shortcut whatever you want it to be called, example “Connect to VPN”
• You will now have a desktop shortcut named whatever you chose above. Double click it and the following window will appear:
• Enter the username and password for your VPN, choose save if you’d like the credentials saving, then Connect. Your VPN should now connect without the windows 10 VPN client won’t connect issue.

This invokes and uses the old rasphone UI which seems to work much more reliably compared to the Windows 10 style UI.

The other workaround is to go into Settings > Network & Internet > VPN and connect from here but some end users will struggle with this, and in some environments this would be locked down.