Much has been written about provisioning Windows 10 Always On VPN client connections over the past few years. While the preferred method for deploying Always On VPN is Microsoft Intune, using PowerShell is often helpful for initial testing, and required for production deployment with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) or Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM). That said, there will invariably come a time when an administrator has to remove an Always On VPN connection. It is not as simple as you might think.
Important Note! The PowerShell script mentioned in this post is broken in Windows 11 and some later versions of Windows 10. This is due to an apparent bug whereby the MDM_VPNv2_01 WMI class can’t be enumerated. Microsoft is aware of the issue and hopefully it will be resolved in the near future.
PowerShell
There are a variety of ways to remove an existing Always On VPN connection, with the quickest and simplest being PowerShell and the Remove-VpnConnection cmdlet.
Get-VpnConnection -Name ‘Always On VPN’ | Remove-VpnConnection -Force
There are several limitations to this method, however.
Active Connections
Administrators will quickly realize that PowerShell fails to remove a VPN connection that is currently connected. As shown here, attempting to remove an active VPN connection will return the following error message.
“The VPN connection [connection name] cannot be removed from the local user connections. Cannot delete a connection while it is connected.”
Registry Artifacts
Removing Always On VPN connections using PowerShell commonly leaves behind registry artifacts that can potentially cause problems. For example, there are several Always On VPN-related registry entries in several locations including the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\EnterpriseResourceManager\Tracked hive that may not be deleted when removing an Always On VPN connection. When provisioning a new Always On VPN connection after deleting one with the same name previously, the administrator may encounter the following error message.
“Unable to create [connection name] profile: A general error occurred that is not covered by a more specific error code.”
Note: This error can also be caused by improperly formatted XML configuration files. More details here.
Remove-AovpnConnection Script
Veteran Always On VPN administrators are likely familiar with PowerShell scripts I’ve created called New-AovpnConneciton.ps1 and New-AovpnDeviceConnection.ps1, which are hosted on my GitHub. These scripts are adapted from code samples published by Microsoft to which I have included additional functionality. To address the limitations highlighted in this article I have published a new PowerShell script called Remove-AovpnConnection.ps1. It will remove any Always On VPN connection, even those that are currently active. It also includes logic to remove known registry artifacts common to Always On VPN. Download the script from GitHub and use the following syntax to remove an Always On VPN connection, established or not.
.\Remove-AovpnConnection.ps1 -ProfileName [connection name]
Running this PowerShell command will forcibly remove an Always On VPN connection. Use the -DeviceTunnel switch when removing a device tunnel connection (requires running in the system context). I have also included a -CleanUpOnly switch to remove registry artifacts when the VPN connection was previously removed using another method.
Updated Installation Scripts
I have also updated New-AovpnConnection.ps1 to include these registry clean up steps. This will prevent future errors when provisioning an Always On VPN client where a connection of the same name was removed previously.
Note: New-AovpnConnection.ps1 has also been updated to support device tunnel deployments. As such, I have deprecated New-AovpnDeviceConnection.ps1. Simply use New-AovpnConnection.ps1 with the -DeviceTunnel switch to deploy an Always On VPN device tunnel.
Additional Information
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Configuration using PowerShell
Troubleshooting Always On VPN Unable to Create Profile General Error
With the COVID-19 global pandemic forcing nearly everyone to work from home these days, organizations that implemented force tunneling for their VPN clients are likely encountering unexpected problems. When force tunneling is enabled, all client traffic, including Internet traffic, is routed over the VPN tunnel. This often overloads the VPN infrastructure and causes serious slowdowns, which degrades the user experience and negatively impacts productivity. This is especially challenging because so many productivity applications like Microsoft Office 365 are optimized for Internet accessibility. It is one of the main reasons that force tunneling is not generally recommended.
Unlike DirectAccess, Windows 10 Always On VPN settings are deployed to the individual user, not the device. As such, there is no support for logging on without cached credentials using the default configuration. To address this limitation, and to provide feature parity with DirectAccess, Microsoft later introduced the device tunnel option in Windows 10 1709.
