The Cisco VPN Service has not been started

Question

i'm trying to use Cisco VPN client, but i get the error:

Error 56: The Cisco Systems, Inc. VPN Service has not been started.
Please start this service and try again.

Of course the service is started; so that's not very helpful.

It's been working for years (two years), but today i go to use it and it's borken.

Some people have suggested that the Internet Connection Sharing service can interfere with Cisco and should be disabled; it already was.

Edit: Windows 2000 Professional

Have restarted the service, have rebooted multiple times, have manually run vpngui.exe, vpnclient.exe, ipsecdialer.exe, nothing ever appears.

Answer 1

I had the same problem (on Windows 7 Professional) and found a way to circumvent it:

1. Stop the Internet Connection Sharing service and change its startup type to "manual"
2. Copy your PCF profiles to the "Profiles" folder of the Cisco VPN Client installation, e.g.:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco Systems\VPN Client\Profiles
3. Rename the profile(s) you intend to use to have a simple name (no spaces, etc), something like rwc.pcf
4. cd to where the vpnclient.exe binary is (e.g.: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cisco Systems\VPN Client)
5. type this: vpnclient connect rwc (replace rwc with your profile naturally)
6. The Cisco VPN "User Authentication" windows should pop up now; enter your credentials
7. Done.