openvpn for windows 10 app

[jaiabishek]

do you guys have any idea in building the app for windows 10 mobiles and workstations.

[mattock]

I have not heard of any such plans. I also believe that the porting effort would be significant. As Windows phones are not really gaining momentum means that it's unlikely such an app would appear anytime soon (or ever). Regardless, I'll keep this issue open so that other people who may need "modern" OpenVPN app can chime in.

[ffes]

If somebody dares to take that path, creating a real OpenVPN provider for Win10 would be the best way.

In the action center there is a "VPN" tile. When you click that you can create a VPN connection. Then you need to select a VPN provider.

I have really not investigated but I assume MSDN has the documentation needed to create a provider. A very quick search result is https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows.networking.vpn where is stated that when you have questions about the VPN API you can contact them via e-mail.

[cron2]

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 01:01:05AM -0700, Frank Fesevur wrote:

If somebody dares to take that path, creating a real OpenVPN provider for Win10 would be the best way.

Undoubtedly. Unfortunately, "someone" would have to have lots of time
in his hands, or be paid for that - and I see neither right now.

gert

USENET is not the non-clickable part of WWW!
//www.muc.de/~gert/
Gert Doering - Munich, Germany gert@greenie.muc.de
fax: +49-89-35655025 gert@net.informatik.tu-muenchen.de

[farosch]

Any news on this? I'd really love to see this - this could also be the answer to #51, #77 and #79

[mattock]

We're eventually going to get there with the "Unified Connect" client which I believe is already in beta for the Android platform. That client will be based on openvpn3. I suspect it will take some months before anything will be available in the Microsoft Store. At the moment there are no plans to open source the Windows client.

@brunofin If you want to open source your work I suggest waiting a bit until the Windows VPN API is a bit more mature. This helps you avoid banging your head against Windows bugs. In any case I think the client using the Windows API will not be openvpn-gui, but something entirely else.

[HarvsG]

Some issues CISCO had that may be relevant @brunofin.

[Boca13]

Any updates on this? Having OpenVPN as a UWP VPN plugin would be great for a seamless integration with the Windows VPN functionality. Let us know if you decide to release the code and/or are open to getting some help.

[alie2n]

Some time has passed again and I was confronted by a windows 10 s device that has no possibility to install openvpn.
Is there any testing going on or was the project "openvpn as native vpn provider for windows" canceled?

[JM-Lemmi]

Just checking in on this.
Any updates?

[mattock]

@lstipakov should know.

[lstipakov]

We had a proof of concept - openvpn client using UWP VPN API, but because of:

• we didn't manage to achieve a good performance even comparison with TAP driver (not even mentioning wintun driver, which is significantly faster)

• Windows Phone is dead and UWP doesn't seem to get much traction

we decided to put that on the shelf.

[123gizi]

Even with the reduced performance, I think having an UWP option would be great for Windows 10 S devices as they could still be used to connect to the home network with a lot of the routers having a OpenVPN server. This could keep the devices secure without the need to sign up for a paid VPN service and still allow access to the home NAS and even IoT devices.
Anyone needing more complex setups would still be able to use the current client...

[v1ctormoreno]

Would be great to have this option as it could enable people to log into vpn before login in their computer. Like Cisco Anyconnect.

[lstipakov]

We had prototype of OpenVPN client based on UWP, but performance-wise it was not noticeably faster comparison to tap-windows6 based client, At the moment we're focusing on the new high-performance ovpn-dco-win driver (https://github.com/openvpn/ovpn-dco-win) which provides superior performance. However, at the moment it is under development and not recommended for production use.

Note that you can use OpenVPN service for autostart feature, see https://openvpn.net/community-resources/running-openvpn-as-a-windows-service/.

[MohammedNoureldin]

Will this driver enable OpenVPN client integration in Windows seamlessly? (for example to connect to from Windows to an OpenVPN server hosted on Linux) I mean just like the other VPN protocols?

[ThaDaVos]

Any progress on the integration with Windows Internal VPN? Or maybe add as provider? - this will help a lot of users which have Windows S

[lstipakov]

Not at the moment.

We are now focused on getting our new driver (https://github.com/openvpn/ovpn-dco-win) into OpenVPN 2.6, which should significantly improve performance on Windows.

[terrorx9]

Not at the moment.

We are now focused on getting our new driver (https://github.com/openvpn/ovpn-dco-win) into OpenVPN 2.6, which should significantly improve performance on Windows.

Would it be possible to get the windows package published via the windows 11 store at least?- that would solve my problem with having Windows 11 S Mode.

[lstipakov]

Right now it is not possible to upload openvpn-gui into the Microsoft Store. However, recently Microsoft announced plans to support "traditional" apps in store and we have been in contact with them. We'll let you know when we'll have something.

[tfonzi]

We had a proof of concept - openvpn client using UWP VPN API, but because of:

* we didn't manage to achieve a good performance even comparison with TAP driver (not even mentioning wintun driver, which is significantly faster)

* Windows Phone is dead and UWP doesn't seem to get much traction

we decided to put that on the shelf.

@lstipakov I know you mentioned this project as scrapped, but just curious, is the code that existed for this prototype available on Github?

[lstipakov]

Not at the moment. We have used semi-internal MSFT documentation to make it work and I probably need to get a permission from our legal to publish the source code.

[lstipakov]

@tfonzi May I ask what is your use case?

[tfonzi]

I'm working on using the Windows VPN API for connecting to an OpenVPN server. Seems like generally there are not a lot of resources/references available online, so any would be appreciated!

[gitnewcomer]

I'm working on using the Windows VPN API for connecting to an OpenVPN server. Seems like generally there are not a lot of resources/references available online, so any would be appreciated!

Hi @tfonzi check my answer on issue 77 maybe it can help you... ;)
With the Pre-Logon Access Provider it should be possible to use the OpenVPN GUI to establish a VPN connection before Windows Logon, like I've seen it with the CheckPoint EndPoint Security, that only opens the CheckPoint VPN Client GUI to connect to the VPN (also the same GUI that is used on the CheckPoint VPN Client after logon)...

[salaros]

I would rather install 3-4 providers for built-in Windows 11 VPN app, than 3-4 different applications.
That's why I'm willing to support this implementation financially or by helping out with code... or both

[alex2364]

I would like to add my support for a Microsoft Store UWP app! I'm looking for a client that I can install in Windows S mode. I'm not too concerned with performance as long as it works. Something similar to the Cisco AnyConnect app in the Microsoft Store would be great.

[selvanair]

Closing as this as writing a UWP app for openvpn is better discussed in a new project devoted to that goal.

[gitnewcomer]

I would like to add my support for a Microsoft Store UWP app! I'm looking for a client that I can install in Windows S mode. I'm not too concerned with performance as long as it works. Something similar to the Cisco AnyConnect app in the Microsoft Store would be great.

I still don't understand why people still like to use the limited Windows on S mode. It is so limited that we can't run any batch file or task planner. I would suggest to deactivate the S mode to be able to use windows in a more efficient way (window S mode is a false feeling of security anyway): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307

[alex2364]

I would like to add my support for a Microsoft Store UWP app! I'm looking for a client that I can install in Windows S mode. I'm not too concerned with performance as long as it works. Something similar to the Cisco AnyConnect app in the Microsoft Store would be great.

I still don't understand why people still like to use the limited Windows on S mode. It is so limited that we can't run any batch file or task planner. I would suggest to deactivate the S mode to be able to use windows in a more efficient way (window S mode is a false feeling of security anyway): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307

I still don't understand why people like to judge other people on how they use their computers when the real issue of this is the lack of UWP app in the Microsoft Store. Whether or not you use Windows S mode, everyone can benefit from a Microsoft Store UWP app. Thanks for not contributing to anything in this thread!

[gitnewcomer]

I would like to add my support for a Microsoft Store UWP app! I'm looking for a client that I can install in Windows S mode. I'm not too concerned with performance as long as it works. Something similar to the Cisco AnyConnect app in the Microsoft Store would be great.

I still don't understand why people still like to use the limited Windows on S mode. It is so limited that we can't run any batch file or task planner. I would suggest to deactivate the S mode to be able to use windows in a more efficient way (window S mode is a false feeling of security anyway): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/switching-out-of-s-mode-in-windows-4f56d9be-99ec-6983-119f-031bfb28a307

I still don't understand why people like to judge other people on how they use their computers when the real issue of this is the lack of UWP app in the Microsoft Store. Whether or not you use Windows S mode, everyone can benefit from a Microsoft Store UWP app. Thanks for not contributing to anything in this thread!

If you knew the limitations of Windows on S mode and the possibilities of OpenVPN, you should know that both are not compatible. An example: Windows on S mode does not allow the use of scripts, how do you implement the client side scripting of OpenVPN (https://openvpn.net/vpn-server-resources/explanation-of-client-side-scripting-with-simple-examples/) even if you would have a UWP app? It doesn't make sense developing something that will only partial work. If you need OpenVPN, then you need to disable the S mode of Windows to use it, this is why Microsoft allows it and also gives you steps to do it. Did you know what happened to Windows RT? The Windows version that only allowed apps from Microsoft Store and didn't have a way to disable it like on S mode in this days? Yeah, nobody wanted to develop for it because UWP apps are limited, so Microsoft abandoned the OS. You should be glad that there is a possibility to disable the S mode on Windows 10/11... Owners of tablets with Windows RT didn't have the same luck and ended with a very limited device and almost no apps on Microsoft Store for them...

[cron2]

Hi, could you please discuss the benefits (or not) of Win10 S mode outside this issue? It has nothing to do with OpenVPN GUI. If someone wants to write an UWP app, and someone else finds that useful, it's their choice. *We* are currently not going to invest development time into the UWP app, because we're massively short on resources - as in, we have more urgent issues that need to be taken care of. gert

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-- "If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor." Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Gert Doering - Munich, Germany ***@***.***