The Cisco VPN Client Broke TCP/IP!
We have some clients who use Cisco PIX firewalls, and to access their systems we need to logon using the Cisco VPN Client. Normally this is no problem — you just install the client, configure the VPN you’re connecting to and you’re outta there. But for some reason on MY computer this week when I tried to set it up, TCP/IP was completely screwed.
After reinstalling a few times in disbelief, trying to repair my Local Area Connection (or any other connection) would yield “Failed to query TCP/IP settings” and that was it. No connectivity to anything that smelled like a network.
I found some links on Google, but whilst using another PC so I don’t have them here — you will have to take my word for it. They said to do all this complicated registry hackery and editing .ini files, allowing you to uninstall then reinstall TCP/IP. I’m way too impatient for that, so all I did was go into the Properties for the Local Area Connection and untick TCP/IP…click OK and then go back in and tick TCP/IP again. This must reset the settings for the TCP/IP protocol on that network interface.
Now it works.
Comment (1)
My problem with the same symptoms (Failed to query…) was not solved by this solution. My reinstall version of Windows XP Professional with SP2 appeared to have a problem in the tcpip.sys (found in %WINDOWS%/System32/drivers and %WINDOWS%/System32/dllcache). I rebooted the defective machine in safe mode (without networking) and copied the tcpip.sys over the existing two. After another (normal) reboot my system was working again.