The way I do my free VPN is simple & direct on Windows 10 with a few tricks......
Please don't make this discussion
This is all about streamlining - and not necessarily about VPN per se.
Does Windows 11 have any tricks to make free VPN connections streamlined?
The way I do my free VPN is simple & direct on Windows 10 with a few tricks added to get past the UAC prompt and to eliminate typing the login/password and to eliminate the GUI (as all I need to do is doubleclick on the file); but I'm hoping to make it less manual and more automatic on Windows 11 if there's anything new in Windows 11 for streamlining VPN connections.
While there are probably a few people using VPN, I don't
know if we have the depth of experience to answer your question.
Maybe a forum that discusses FreeVPN has the right individuals
for a question like this (web forum). Since there are a number
of people hosting this, they must gather somewhere for discussions.
For the UAC prompt problem, you can use Task Scheduler to run the program with highest privileges. Make sure the "Run with highest privileges" setting of the scheduled task is enabled. The user account used to run the the task doesn't have to be the built-in Administrator account, and instead, should
be your own user account.
However, the problem is that, the VPN client program requires a different user credential. Windows doesn't have any feature to securely automate inputting it. So the credential must already been stored in a file - preferrably under the user's profile folder and with the NTFS encryption
file attribute enabled, so that it won't be readable in plain text by other than your Windows user account. That being said, any application which is
run using your user account, will be able to read the file.
This is all about streamlining - and not necessarily about VPN per se.
Does Windows 11 have any tricks to make free VPN connections streamlined?
Paul wrote on Sat, 24 Aug 2024 13:27:05 -0400 :
While there are probably a few people using VPN, I don't
know if we have the depth of experience to answer your question.
Your advice is always wizened by experience, Paul. I appreciate that.
I thought most people on this newsgroup used VPN daily, don't they?
...
And where the program is set to the openvpn daemon C:\pathto\openvpn.exe
And where arguments are set to any one particular VPN configuration file
C:\pathto\vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
Which never worked so I changed it to program "%comspec%" and arguments
/c start "" c:\pathto\openvpn.exe C:\pathto\vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
Which still never worked because it has to be done for thousands of files.
But I set up all those task failures long ago, where probably I should try anew now that I have a better batch script which chooses the configs using
set cmd=C:pathto\openvpn.exe
set dir=C:\users\whoami\vpn\
set file=vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
REM %cmd% %dir%%file%
runas.exe /user:administrator /savecred "%cmd% %dir%%file%"
Knowing the setup for the task scheduler, do you have any suggestions
for how to run the batch file such that the openvpn.exe GUI has elevated privileges when it tries to change the routing table with route.exe?
But I have never gotten the Windows task scheduler to work with openvpn.
Do you think it's even possible given openvpn.exe has to itself be able to modify the route (which I presume it does by calling route.exe internally)?
And where the program is set to the openvpn daemon C:\pathto\openvpn.exe
And where arguments are set to any one particular VPN configuration file
C:\pathto\vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
Which never worked so I changed it to program "%comspec%" and arguments
/c start "" c:\pathto\openvpn.exe C:\pathto\vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
Which still never worked because it has to be done for thousands of files.
How exactly that it "doesn't work"? Any error message?
What are you expecting, and what are the actual result?
But I set up all those task failures long ago, where probably I should try >> anew now that I have a better batch script which chooses the configs using >> set cmd=C:pathto\openvpn.exe
set dir=C:\users\whoami\vpn\
set file=vpngate_1.250.96.236_udp_1195.ovpn
REM %cmd% %dir%%file%
runas.exe /user:administrator /savecred "%cmd% %dir%%file%"
Knowing the setup for the task scheduler, do you have any suggestions
for how to run the batch file such that the openvpn.exe GUI has elevated
privileges when it tries to change the routing table with route.exe?
openvpn.exe doesn't have any GUI. It's a pure console program. Were you referring to the GUI of openvpn-gui.exe? FYI, openvpn-gui.exe has a
different set of command line usage and arguments.
But I have never gotten the Windows task scheduler to work with openvpn.
Do you think it's even possible given openvpn.exe has to itself be able to >> modify the route (which I presume it does by calling route.exe internally)?
It normally shouldn't be a problem as long as openvpn already have administrative rights, since by system default, a child process inherits the user account and the security access level of the parent process. This does not apply if the execution is (specifically) delegated to the desktop
process - which doesn't have administrative rights by default.
While there are probably a few people using VPN, I don't
know if we have the depth of experience to answer your question.
Your advice is always wizened by experience, Paul. I appreciate that.
I thought most people on this newsgroup used VPN daily, don't they?
Never used a VPN, not even a trial.
While there are probably a few people using VPN, I don't
know if we have the depth of experience to answer your question.
Your advice is always wizened by experience, Paul. I appreciate that.
I thought most people on this newsgroup used VPN daily, don't they?
Never used a VPN, not even a trial.
This Chromebook I'm posting with has a few DNS choices built into its
security settings. I chose the Google Public DNS. Dunno why other than it
seemed to fit this toy...
Why would people use a VPN daily?
Not everyone is as paranoid as you.
In summary, the main "trick" that I need help on is how to tell for sure
that I've connected to a VPN server - where there are two ways that I know
of offhand, one of which is the VPN log file will say this as the last line
"Initialization Sequence Completed"
The other way is that a curl command will show a different IP address.
Win+R whatismyipaddress [return]
Which is a keyword of that same name (i.e., whatismyipaddress.exe) in
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\whatismyipaddress.exe
Which executes the shortcut C:\pathto\whatismyipaddress.lnk
Whose target is %comspec% /k echo "C:\pathto\whatismyipaddress.lnk %myipaddress%" & %Windir%\System32\curl.exe ifconfig.me
This will report the known static ISP IP address plus the current IP
address, where I don't know yet how to compare them in a batch file.
Hence, the two "tricks" of the trade I would like to ask for help on how to do are (a) how do I compare two IP addresses, and (b) how do I test whether or not the VPN connection has been established?
Any ideas from anyone out there on those two Windows networking tricks?
Peter Johnson wrote on Sun, 25 Aug 2024 10:40:50 +0100 :
While there are probably a few people using VPN, I don't
know if we have the depth of experience to answer your question.
Your advice is always wizened by experience, Paul. I appreciate that.
I thought most people on this newsgroup used VPN daily, don't they?
Never used a VPN, not even a trial.
Then you have no privacy. And that's OK. If you don't care about privacy. What a VPN does for me is obfuscate my "real" IP address when I'm online.
That way, when I google for "how to cure my deadly disease", at least the endpoint server running that search doesn't know my real IP address (and, yes, I'm well aware of browser fingerprinting techniques so I account for that in a variety of ways, as I'm also aware of photo fingerprinting too,
and I'm aware of private DNS servers, etc., all of which is about privacy).
You have no privacy. And that's fine. As long as you don't want privacy.
But I do.
And one component of that privacy is to use thousands of VPN servers.
It used to be people had to roll their own VPN servers at home, but now
there are thousands upon thousands of free openvpn servers on the net.
Since I'm not doing anything nefarious, the only thing I need out of a free openvpn server is the IP address obfuscation that any proxy provides us.
But proxies only work with browsers whereas VPN is a system-wide
obfuscation of your real IP address - so if you have a better way to change your IP address on the fly, I'm all ears as I'd love to know how you do it.
Since you've never used a VPN, how do *you* change your IP address at will?
Since you've never used a VPN, how do *you* change your IP address at will? >>
By rebooting the router.
IME static IP addresses cost more than dynamic addresses (in the UK).
Also, IME, those reports of found IP addresses are normally that of an
ISP server not the end user.
Hence, the two "tricks" of the trade I would like to ask for help on how to >> do are (a) how do I compare two IP addresses, and (b) how do I test whether >> or not the VPN connection has been established?
Any ideas from anyone out there on those two Windows networking tricks?
The output of whatismyipaddress.exe however, I don't know. I'm not familiar with that program, and Googling that exact file name gives no match. If its output is not just an IP address, then the batch file will need to parse the output and extract oly the IP address. I can't know how exactly to do that, since I don't know its exact output. If it's just an IP address, then you
can use the same method as above except with different variable name. Then you can compare both variable like you did on your other batch file.
It's best to use a batch file for that. Otherwise everything will have to be placed in one very long command line. It'd be a pain to maintain and update.
The output of that curl accessing ifconfig.me is already just the IP
address, so it can simply be retrieved as is and placed into a variable.
e.g. in a batch file:
@echo off
setlocal
for /f "delims=" %%A in ('%Windir%\System32\curl.exe ifconfig.me') do set ipcurl=%%A
echo IP from curl = %ipcurl%"
I thought most people on this newsgroup used VPN daily, don't they?
This is all about streamlining - and not necessarily about VPN per se.
Does Windows 11 have any tricks to make free VPN connections streamlined?
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