Member Avatar for serkan sendur

i have a new hp pavillion laptop intel centrino 2 core two duo 2.26 ghz 64 bit cpu. i have a cisco 32 bit vpn software which i cant run on this machine. how can i get it to run?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

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For — a short, practical checklist and fixes that address the usual cause when a 32‑bit VPN client won't work on a 64‑bit laptop.

Most VPN clients include a kernel‑level network driver. The user‑mode program can be 32‑bit, but the driver must match the OS bitness and be signed; when that driver fails the virtual adapter or service never appears and the VPN won't connect.

  1. Verify OS exactly (Control Panel > System or run systeminfo) so you know the target architecture.
  2. Open Device Manager and look under Network adapters (and Other devices) for any Cisco/VPN entries or yellow exclamation marks. Right‑click > Properties to see the driver status and error codes.
  3. Check Event Viewer (System) right after a failed install for driver or service errors and for messages about driver signing.
  4. If the driver fails to install, install a vendor 64‑bit client/driver (ask your network admin or Cisco support) — a 32‑bit installer that tries to add a kernel driver will fail on 64‑bit Windows. If no 64‑bit client exists, use one of the safe workarounds below.

Workarounds and options

  • Use the vendor's supported 64‑bit client (or a modern replacement like AnyConnect if your VPN gateway supports it).
  • If server side supports standard tunnels, use the built‑in Windows VPN or another 64‑bit third‑party client.
  • Install a 32‑bit guest OS in a VM (VirtualBox/VMware Player) and run the legacy Cisco client inside the VM — this isolates kernel drivers to the guest and is often the simplest safe solution.

Quick diagnostic commands (run in an elevated command prompt)

systeminfo
driverquery /v
sigverif

Cautions: do not permanently disable driver‑signature enforcement; prefer signed, vendor‑supported drivers. The earlier comments by and point to the same root: compatibility is usually determined by driver availability and OS edition rather than a simple 32‑ vs 64‑bit user program issue.

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Member Avatar for jbennet

32 bit software should "just work" due to the fact that 64 bit windows has a thing called WoW (Windows on windows) which is a compatibility layer which allows it to run 32 bit apps (32 bit versions of windows have the same thing to allow it to run 16 bit apps)

Which version of windows are you using?

"XP Pro" x64? Or vista x64??

XP Pro 64 is crap with regards to app/driver support. It wont run hardly anything because its not xp under the hood (its based on windows server 2003). Vista 64 bit on the other hand, normally tends to run 99% of the stuff that vista 32 bit does.

Member Avatar for Suspishio

I don't agree that XP Pro 64 is crap. Sure there's poorly written (but I concede useful) stuff that won't work in XP-64; it's as often as not the installer that's the problem, I've found. As for drivers, I've got stacks of hardware attached and 64 bit drivers are readuily available.

jbennet is right about Vista 54 vs Vista 62; but then Vista doesn't run eveything that XP can run without buying new software versions.

Basically Windows as a whole is a sorry mess in terms of application inter-operability.

Finally, a word about choosing a 64 bit OS; you do need to think why you'd go there I wanted improved floating point performance for 64 bit applications. Others wanted to use the larger memory space to provide for standard applications concurrency without excessive roll-out/roll-in.

Member Avatar for sajinram

when i am running dotnet frame work 2 a message that this product is not supported in 64 bit operating system.

Member Avatar for jbennet

.NET 2.0 does work on 64 bit versions of windows (obviously, as 64-bit windows server systems are commonly used as ASP.NET web servers)

If its a 64 bit version of vista, .NET 2.0 is already installed out of the box. If its XP Professional/Server 2003 64-bit then make sure you download the 64 bit version of the framework from here

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