Vista and Fortigate SSL VPN

My company uses a Fortigate SSL VPN for remote access. The clinet intalls an
ActiveX control to create the VPN Tunnell. This works very differently on
Vista than it does in XP. In XP, the ActX control can be installed easily
from an account with administrative privileges. Once connected, all traffic
flows through the VPN. You minimize the browser, and can use all standard
tools, from ping to remote desktop sessions, and all flows through the VPN.

In Vista, the first issue is that even from an administrative account, you
still need to manually elevate and run IE as an admistrator to both install
the ActX control, as well as to connect to the VPN once the control is
installed. Further, nothing seems to flow through the VPN by default.
Pinging machines on the remote end returns "host unreachable" messages, and
remote desktop sessions just flat out don't work. The VPN itself is
connected, and ipconfig confirms the assigned IP, and DNS settings for it.
Also, though the fortigate VPN itself has some tools that can be used from
the browser, most are disabled, except for ping. Using the ping tool from
the browser (in the admin session, of course) reches the destination fine.

I'm thought this was related to a user rights issue, though I did try to
elevate my RDP session and see if it would work that way, but it did not.
Perhaps something to do with IE's protected mode? I'm almost certain now
that it has something to do with the Vista isolates certain processes and
features.

Any thoughts or potential workarounds?


--
"Hurricane" Andrew
Milford, DE

Not what you want to hear, but it's up to Fortigate to create a
Vista-compatible version of their VPN control. Have you contacted them?

--
Steve Riley
steve.riley@microsoft.com
http://blogs.technet.com/steriley
http://www.protectyourwindowsnetwork.com


"Hurricane Andrew" <HurricaneAndrew@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:C627AD07-1EB8-4535-BD97-F2E840156BB5@microsoft.com...
> My company uses a Fortigate SSL VPN for remote access. The clinet intalls
> an
> ActiveX control to create the VPN Tunnell. This works very differently on
> Vista than it does in XP. In XP, the ActX control can be installed easily
> from an account with administrative privileges. Once connected, all
> traffic
> flows through the VPN. You minimize the browser, and can use all standard
> tools, from ping to remote desktop sessions, and all flows through the
> VPN.
>
> In Vista, the first issue is that even from an administrative account, you
> still need to manually elevate and run IE as an admistrator to both
> install
> the ActX control, as well as to connect to the VPN once the control is
> installed. Further, nothing seems to flow through the VPN by default.
> Pinging machines on the remote end returns "host unreachable" messages,
> and
> remote desktop sessions just flat out don't work. The VPN itself is
> connected, and ipconfig confirms the assigned IP, and DNS settings for it.
> Also, though the fortigate VPN itself has some tools that can be used from
> the browser, most are disabled, except for ping. Using the ping tool from
> the browser (in the admin session, of course) reches the destination fine.
>
> I'm thought this was related to a user rights issue, though I did try to
> elevate my RDP session and see if it would work that way, but it did not.
> Perhaps something to do with IE's protected mode? I'm almost certain now
> that it has something to do with the Vista isolates certain processes and
> features.
>
> Any thoughts or potential workarounds?
>
>
> --
> "Hurricane" Andrew
> Milford, DE

Yeah, I was afraid of that being the answer. We'll open a ticket with them
today.


--
"Hurricane" Andrew
Milford, DE

"Steve Riley [MSFT]" <steve.riley@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:eJPgfk0%23HHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Not what you want to hear, but it's up to Fortigate to create a
> Vista-compatible version of their VPN control. Have you contacted them?
>
> --
> Steve Riley
> steve.riley@microsoft.com
> http://blogs.technet.com/steriley
> http://www.protectyourwindowsnetwork.com
>
>
> "Hurricane Andrew" <HurricaneAndrew@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:C627AD07-1EB8-4535-BD97-F2E840156BB5@microsoft.com...
>> My company uses a Fortigate SSL VPN for remote access. The clinet
>> intalls an
>> ActiveX control to create the VPN Tunnell. This works very differently
>> on
>> Vista than it does in XP. In XP, the ActX control can be installed
>> easily
>> from an account with administrative privileges. Once connected, all
>> traffic
>> flows through the VPN. You minimize the browser, and can use all
>> standard
>> tools, from ping to remote desktop sessions, and all flows through the
>> VPN.
>>
>> In Vista, the first issue is that even from an administrative account,
>> you
>> still need to manually elevate and run IE as an admistrator to both
>> install
>> the ActX control, as well as to connect to the VPN once the control is
>> installed. Further, nothing seems to flow through the VPN by default.
>> Pinging machines on the remote end returns "host unreachable" messages,
>> and
>> remote desktop sessions just flat out don't work. The VPN itself is
>> connected, and ipconfig confirms the assigned IP, and DNS settings for
>> it.
>> Also, though the fortigate VPN itself has some tools that can be used
>> from
>> the browser, most are disabled, except for ping. Using the ping tool
>> from
>> the browser (in the admin session, of course) reches the destination
>> fine.
>>
>> I'm thought this was related to a user rights issue, though I did try to
>> elevate my RDP session and see if it would work that way, but it did not.
>> Perhaps something to do with IE's protected mode? I'm almost certain now
>> that it has something to do with the Vista isolates certain processes and
>> features.
>>
>> Any thoughts or potential workarounds?
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Hurricane" Andrew
>> Milford, DE
>