Cisco VPN Client Uninstall

net-harry · ‎10-09-2007

Hi,

We have a large number of users connecting to several VPN 3000 concentrators with the Cisco VPN client. Due to earlier software distribution issues many of them are running older versions (e.g. 4.0.4).

Now we are about to upgrade the clients to version 4.8.02.0010. We would like to use the MSI package for the distribution that is installed on the clients through SMS. We do not want any user intervention during the install.

However, using the MSI package of the new version the users are prompted to uninstall the old version of the VPN client.

Is there a Cisco uninstall software available that can be used to uninstall (any version of) the VPN client without user involvement and without trying to install a new version?

In that case we could uninstall the old version first and then install the new MSI package using SMS. All without user invlolvment.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best regards,

Harry

net-harry · ‎10-11-2007

Hi,

I have found when searching for this, that it is possible to use the setup file for the new version and add a uninstall flag (i.e run "setup.exe /uninst". This prompts me if I want the installed VPN client to be uninstalled and when I click "Yes" I get the message that the VPN client has successfully been uninstalled. However there are still VPN client files present in the "C:\Program Files\VPN Client" folder.

Does anyone have any experience with using this method to uninstall the VPN client?

Best regards,

Harry

bgholmes212 · ‎10-11-2007

Harry,

I?m unaware of a utility which will uninstall all known versions of the Cisco VPN client. For our recent upgrade I created a wrapper for the installation to check for and remove the known old VPN versions. Assuming everyone is on the same version and it was an MSI install it shouldn?t be to bad. A reboot is required after the uninstall, before you can install the new version. Also watch out for machines which may have a resolution lower than 800x600 as the install will fail. I found that a tablet with the screen rotated (768x1024 I believe it was) causes the install to fail as well.

We had 3.63, 4.02 and 4.6, thankfully all installed via MSI. The wrapper script queries the uninstall reg key to see which version is there and then runs the proper uninstall routine. After the uninstall the script reboots the PC. The installation of the new version starts after the user logs back in.

Now for the bad news? We?ve had a handful of failures due to the VPN client not properly uninstalling. This doesn?t go over well with remote users! This is typically related to the Deterministic Network Enhancer refusing to uninstall. In those cases follow the manual uninstall procedure http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps2308/products_tech_note09186a0080094b7f.shtml

We also had an interesting issue with some users that had Sprint PCS cards. We have still been unable to determine exactly what caused the failures with the Sprint cards. Of course it works fine in the lab, so it?s hard telling what the users may have done while the install/uninstall was running. Regardless, the results were the sprint cards quit working. Some were repairable by re-flashing the firmware; others would not accept the flash update. The cards we had issues with are the Novatel Wireless 620 and 720.

Here is a sample unattented uninstall string which works for 3.63 and 4.02 in my testing. I assume it will be the same for your 4.04, but you may need to update the GUID.

Msiexec.exe "/X{3E5562ED-69AB-4CEC-91E2-64E18EC5ACC6} /qb-! /norestart"

Silent install of 4.8 and likely most other MSI versions

vpnclient_setup.msi /passive /norestart

Regards,

Brian

noran01 · ‎10-19-2007

Have you looked at this?

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/vpn_client/cisco_vpn_client/vpn_client46/administration/guide/vcAch3.html