Impending doom...

[IanGlinka]

I work in a place where we need to accomplish the apparently impossible. We need to actually have the ability to, brace yourself, connect to several different remote access servers and VPN servers from one computer. That used to be easy when everything was dial up. Now, companies (and in my case, hospitals) are switching over to internet based VPNs. They're faster, sure, more secure? I don't know, I guess so... but one thing is for sure, they are certainly a pain in the ass. I see an impending doom for multiple VPN connections on the horizon...

Hospitals started off using primarily the Cisco VPN client, which was okay, and it actually seemed to work. Some hospitals were liberal in their access, even allowing local LAN access so the people in our office could do things like print and access network shares. That used to be standard, but it seems they have tightened security, and allowing the computer on the other end to be able to do ANYTHING but communicate with the hospital's server is unacceptable. (Which is of course all my fault as far as the end user is concerned) Anyway -

I was setting up one of the remote access connections (that uses Cisco's VPN client) on a computer that already had the Nortel VPN client installed on it. It told me I had to uninstall the Nortel VPN Client before installing Cisco VPN software.

OK - Well, after I did that, the user told me he actually needed Contivity back on his computer.

Great - So I reinstalled Nortel, and when I would try to connect to the VPN, I would get a socket creation error. Not much help to the user, so I did everything I could think of... including trying uninstalling and reinstalling the Nortel Contivity VPN software. When I tried to uninstall it, BAM:

Quite explanatory, eh?

So, I didn't know what to do. I tried re-running the install program. Got the same error message. It wouldn't let me reinstall.

So, I tried removing the program files from "C:\PROGRAM FILES\CONTIVITY VPN" or whatever it was. After I did that, I tried uninstalling it (as windows often removes things from the installed program list if it can't find them). Nope, I still got the "catastrophic failure" error message.

I then tried uninstalling the Cisco VPN client. It uninstalled, but didn't change anything. Still got the "catastrophic error" message.

Then, just for the hell of it, I tried running Nortel's Contivity VPN client. After windows searched for it, it opened... AND WORKED. (I think the problem before was the fact that the Cisco VPN client was installed, so it was locking up some port or socket or something) anyway...

When I looked at the properties of the Contivity VPN client's desktop shortcut, I noticed it was running from "C:\RECYCLER\S-1-5-21-1030561755-2085252849-1621235808-500\Dc1\Extranet.exe" - Which is obviously not the correct path. It was apparent Windows searched for the files and updated the shortcut on its own because it couldn't find them. Problem there is - I can't even browse out to that location to restore or permanently delete it.

I guess I could use it from its current location, but that doesn't seem like the greatest of ideas. Has anyone seen this "catastrophic failure" message before? What exactly am I supposed to do? I can't reinstall it, I can't uninstall it, and I can't install the Cisco VPN client on the computer either (because it doesn't let you install it while Nortel's Contivity is installed).

Ugh... What do these companies expect the IT guy to do?

Ian

 

[mmogar]

Ian,

The error is actually an Installshield problem. I have fixed it before with this:
Delete the Program FilesCommon FilesInstallShieldEngine folder and then rerun the setup.
Delete the Program Files/InstallShield Installation Information folder and rerun the setup.
But, in your case where it is failing on the uninstall, I would do this:
Install the latest version of Ikernel.exe onto your system.
First go to your "Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\engine\6\Intel 32" directory, and rename the "Intel 32" directory that contains the IKernel.exe file.
Go to the following web address:

http://www.installshield.com,

click on the "SUPPORT" link, click on the "Knowledge Base" hyperlink and enter Q105097 in the Article ID field. Download the ikernel engine update (single executable) and run it.

 

[EddieVenus]

yes do that, and also make sure that there are no services running for either of the cisco or nortel VPNs. As they both have services running that may interfere with both the setup and uninstall of the other, even of themselvs. Just a warning multiple VPN clients will not play nice. You can get them to work if you manage the associated services for them. Or if you use one client and the default MS vpn setup. But 2 or more clients has caused me nothing but pain. It can be done in most cases, just at a considerable cost. See if any of them can be done using the built in VPN clint in win2k/xp. that will alleviate alot of headaches on your part, plus it will look just like dial up to the users. how nifty.