If you are accustomed to use Windows’s integrated VPN client to establish a PPTP VPN connection, you should try to use L2TP/IPSec VPN instead. You just have to change a few options in the client, but L2TP/IPSec VPN is significantly more secure than PPTP VPN. This brief tutorial shows you how to set up an L2TP/IPSec VPN connection with Windows 7. Apply the instructions analogously if you use a different Windows version.
Firstly, open the Control Panel, then click on „View network status and tasks.”
In the „Network and Sharing Center,” click on „Set up a new connection or network.”
„Connect to a workplace.”
We want to create a new connection:
And we wish to establish a VPN connection over the existing Internet connection:
Now type in the Internet address. In our example, we are connecting to one of our privacy servers in Amsterdam, but you can use any other of our privacy servers which support L2TP/IPSec. You can find their host names (FQDN’s) in our server section.
The „Destination name” is how your new connection icon will be called. You can enter whichever name you please.
Make sure to select „[√] Don’t connect now.” We still have to alter some of the default connection properties before we can connect.
Then enter your Perfect Privacy username and password and click on „Create.”
Close the window.
Back in the „Network and Sharing Center,” click on „Change adapter settings.”
Find the connection icon you just created — „Amsterdam L2TP IPSec” in our case —, right-click on it and select „Properties.”
Click on the „Options” tab and deselect „[ ] Include Windows logon domain.”
Then click on the „Security” tab. From the drop-down menu, we select „Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol with IPSec (L2TP/IPSec).” We choose „Maximum Strength Encryption” and disallow all authentication protocols but „[√] Microsoft CHAP Version 2” (which is the safest).
Thereafter, we click on the „Advanced settings” button on the same window.
Paste the preshared key, then click „OK.” You can find the preshared key (also called „PSK” or „Secret”) for the server you are using here. In our example, we have to use the PSK for the Amsterdam servers.
Finally, click on the „Networking” tab. You can usually disable all connection items but „[√] Internet Protocol Version 4.” If you have more or different items than in the screenshot beneath and are unsure whether they are needed or not, don’t make any changes.
Once you are done, click on „OK.”
You may wish to drag the connection item we just configured and drop it onto your Desktop, so that you can access it quickly in future. Connection items can actually not be moved from the „Network Connections” window, thus if you drag & drop it, Windows will create a shortcut on your Desktop instead.
Now double-click on the shortcut …
… and the connection window will open. Click the „Connect” button.
Windows will now establish the L2TP/IPSec VPN connection. Your username and password will be verified, and finally you will be registered on the server.
If everything worked out fine, the connection window will be minimized into the system tray, i.e. it will completely disappear from the Desktop.
Now let’s test if everything works, as it should. Open your browser and go to a page like whatismyipaddress.com. You will now see the IP address and the location of the L2TP/IPSec server to which you are connected (one of the Amsterdam servers in our example). All your incoming and outgoing Internet traffic, no matter which application you use, will now be anonymous and encrypted.
By the way: Depending on your settings, after some seconds or minutes of being connected the first time to a specific L2TP/IPSec server a „Network Location” window might appear.
Select „Public Network” because you do not know and trust all the other members which use our L2TP/IPSec VPN, too. That way they cannot see or use your shared resources, but are treated like other Internet users.
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