How to automatically connect Windows 7 or 2008 R2 VPN on start up

Do you have a Windows 7 or 2008 R2 machine that needs to automatically connect to a VPN? Here are some instructions on configuring the Task Scheduler to do this for you.

My thanks to RpCahoon for providing his helpful post on Microsoft's Social Answers site. I'm also giving Microsoft a nod for doing such thorough job with the modern Task Scheduler.

Instructions

1. Open Task Scheduler
   Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler
2. Click "Create Task" in the Actions pane on the right
3. General Tab
1. Provide a logical name for the task like "Auto VPN"
2. Switch the running task mode to Run whether user is logged on or not
3. Enable the Run with highest privileges option
4. Change the "Configure for:" drop-down to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
4. Triggers Tab
1. Click the "New..." button
2. Change "Begin the task:" to At start up
3. (Optional) Enable "Delay task for" and set to 5 minutes. This give the machine a chance to idle down before launching the VPN.
5. Actions Tab
1. Click the "New..." button
2. Enter c:\windows\system32\rasdial.exe in the "Program/script:" field. You can also browse to it if you don't want to type it or your default Windows install directory is different.
3. Type the connection name in the "Add arguments" field. The rasdial.exe requires you wrap the connection name in quotes if it has spaces. You may also need to append the connection's username and password if they are required.
6. Conditions Tab
1. Un-check all of the options on the conditions tab.
7. Settings Tab
1. (Optional) enable "If the task fails, restart every:" and set to an appropriate value. I set mine to 1 hour in case there is a problem on the VPN server's end. 
2. (Optional) set the "Attempt to restart up to:" value to an acceptable number. My default is 72 times at a 1 hour interval. This covers long weekend.
8. Save the new task

Create Cisco VPN on Ubuntu Karmic/Lucid

It is very easy to setup a Cisco VPN on Ubuntu. I used the following instructions to get my corporate tunnels running. This tutorial assumes you have already acquired a .pcf file from your network IT staff.

Instructions

Install the vpnc package and any required dependencies:

sudo apt-get install vpnc

Open your vpn pcf configuration file with your favorite text editor.

vim corporatenet.pcf

It will looking something like this:

[main]
Description=
Host=vpn.corpnet.com
AuthType=1
GroupName=CorpNet
GroupPwd=enc_GroupPwd=C555E3A4BE82FF0001601A38260A92D93FF5693A482367E117EF8697CBED681C5FDD7F2AE0DEEA4B37DBBB21434189A46D8955F11916040A
EnableISPConnect=0
ISPConnectType=0
ISPConnect=
ISPPhonebook=
ISPCommand=
Username=
SaveUserPassword=0
UserPassword=
enc_UserPassword=
NTDomain=
EnableBackup=0
BackupServer=
EnableMSLogon=1
MSLogonType=0
EnableNat=1
TunnelingMode=0
TcpTunnelingPort=10000
CertStore=0
CertName=
CertPath=
CertSubjectName=
CertSerialHash=00000000000000000000000000000000
SendCertChain=0
PeerTimeout=90
EnableLocalLAN=0

Note the values for Host, GroupName and enc_GroupPwd. You'll need these to create your vpnc configuration file.

sudo vim /etc/vpnc/corpnet.conf

Make your configuration file look like this. Just make sure to change the fictional CorpNet values with your own.

IPSec gateway vpn.corpnet.com
IPSec ID CorpNet
IPSec obfuscated secret C555E3A4BE82FF0001601A38260A92D93FF5693A482367E117EF8697CBED681C5FDD7F2AE0DEEA4B37DBBB21434189A46D8955F11916040A
Xauth username YOURUSERNAME
Xauth password YOURPASSWORD

It's important to note the obfuscated option in the group password. Most of the examples and howtos I've seen on the Net leave this out because they were written several years ago before VPNC supported Cisco encrypted passwords. The older guides required you to de-crypt the Cisco string. This isn't necessary anymore with Karmic and Lucid releases.