I had a strange case the other day at work when all of a sudden my laptop would fail to resolve dns queries for my wireless connection only – my wired card was not affected. Changing dns entries to another server did not fix the issue. Eventually I tried disabling the Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter (from device manager) and immediately I was able to resolve dns again. Once I discovered this fix I remembered something similar with this adapter. Looking back through my previous notes we had an issue with Shrewsoft’s vpn software – with the Microsoft Virtual Wifi Miniport Adapter enabled we were unable to get a vpn session working to a Cisco client.
So far, disabling this adapter does not seem to have caused any issues – apparently it’s purpose is to allow you to connect to more than one wireless connection at the same time – an unlikely requirement in most business situations.
After about 3 weeks and many calls with Verizon technical support we finally got to the bottom of being unable to connect via a VPN on USB Verizon wireless cards (an older PCMCIA card was still working fine).
It turns out that the IP Code was set to general – which is normally placed on residential air cards to restrict ip traffic. The tech removed this “feature” and we confirmed vpn worked again.
So, if you are having this problem, contact Verizon Technical support and ask them to remove General IP code from the phone. If the Tier1 support person doesn’t know what you are talking about, request they instant message level 3 support who will know what you are talking about.
Good luck and I hope this prevents 3 weeks of VPN failure for other people.
Thanks to Eric for persevering and finally getting an answer