Configuring a VPN connection on Windows 7

1. Click on the Windows Start button at the lower, left-hand corner of the screen, or tap the Windows key on the keyboard and select Control Panel.

2. From the Control Panel, click on Network and Internet

   

3. Click on Network and Sharing Center.

4. Click on Set up a new connection or network.

   
   
   

   

5. Click on Connect to a workplace at the "Choose a connection option" window.

   

6. At the Connect to a Workplace window, click on Use my Internet connection (VPN).

   

7. At the next window you will see "Type the Internet address to connect to".

   

   Type the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or IP address for the VPN provider, e.g., example.com, in the Internet address field. The default destination name is "VPN Connection," but you can change it if you wish to reflect the particular VPN provider, e.g., "Ajax VPN Connection". Check the check box next to "Don't connect now; just set it up so I can connect later" and then click on the Next button.

   Note: if you don't have a VPN service already, Hide.me offers a free VPN service you can use for testing, though it has more limited features and geographical locations than the Hide.me paid service.

8. At the next window, you can provide the user name and password for the VPN account. If you don't want to have to provide those each time you establish the VPN connection, check the check box next to "Remember this password" then click on Create.

   
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9. When you see "The connection is ready to use," click on the Close button rather than Connect now.
   

   

10. Then back at the Network and Sharing Center window, you can click on Connect to a Network and select the VPN connection.

    

    Or you can click on Change adapter settings which will show you the available network connections. You will need to be already connected to the Internet via a wired or wireless connection to establish a connection to the VPN. You can then double-click on the VPN connection entry in the list. You should see "WAN Miniport (IKEv2)" on that entry.

    

    If you need to make any changes to the settings, you can right-click on the relevant VPN connection and choose Properties.

    

11. A window will open with fields for the user name and password for the domain. If you chose to save those values previously, you can simply click on Connect at this point to establish the VPN connection.

    

Once the connection window goes away, you can verify you are now accessing the Internet through the VPN connection by going to a site such as WhatIsMyIP that will show your current IP address and the geographical location associated with that IP address.

When you want to disconnect the VPN connection, you can right-click on the VPN entry from the Network Connections window and choose Disconnect.

Or you can click on Connect or disconnect from the Network and Sharing Center window.

You will then see the network connections; you can click on the VPN one which will cause a Disconnect button to appear.