I’ve written many articles about the Windows 10 Always On VPN device tunnel over the years. If you are not familiar with the device tunnel, it is an optional configuration that provides pre-logon connectivity for domain-joined, Enterprise edition Windows 10 clients. Although the device tunnel was designed to supplement the user tunnel connection, some administrators have deployed the device tunnel exclusively and use it for general on-premises network access. While I do not typically recommend this configuration for a variety of reasons, there are some use cases for which using the device tunnel might be acceptable.
Device Tunnel Status
For those administrators who have decided to deploy the device tunnel exclusively, a common complaint is that the device tunnel connection status does not appear in the Windows 10 notification area like other network or user tunnel connections.
However, the device tunnel does appear in the classic Network Connections control panel applet (ncpa.cpl).
Enable Device Tunnel Status Indicator
Fortunately, there is a simple workaround that allows for the device tunnel connection status to appear in the Windows 10 notification area. This can be done by setting the following registry value.
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Flyout\VPN\ShowDeviceTunnelInUI DWORD = 1
You can set this registry value using Active Directory group policy preferences or locally by running the following PowerShell command.
New-Item -Path ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Flyout\VPN’ -Force
New-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Flyout\VPN\’ -Name ‘ShowDeviceTunnelInUI’ -PropertyType DWORD -Value 1 -Force
Once this registry value is set, the Always On VPN device tunnel will appear in the notification area long with other network connections.
Caveat
Although the UI will now display the connectivity status of the Always On VPN device tunnel, clicking Disconnect has no effect. This is expected and by design, as the device tunnel is deployed in the context of the system, not the user. Disconnecting the device tunnel must be performed by an administrator using the GUI tool rasphone.exe or the command line tool rasdial.exe.
Blog Post Comments
For the record, several readers of this blog had posted this workaround in the comments of this post. In the past. I declined to approve those comments because initially I did not want to encourage people to deploy the device tunnel standalone. However, recently I have had a change of heart, and decided to publish this information for those administrators who want to use the device tunnel exclusively, and would also benefit from a visual connectivity status indicator for the Windows 10 Always On VPN device tunnel. Although I still do not recommend using the device tunnel alone, I understand that it may be acceptable for others, so I have decided to release that information here.
Additional Information
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Only Deployment Considerations
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Operation and Best Practices
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel with Azure VPN Gateway
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel and Certificate Revocation
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Configuration using Microsoft Intune
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Does Not Connect Automatically
Windows 10 Always On VPN Device Tunnel Missing in Windows 10 UI
A longstanding issue with Windows 10 Always On VPN is that of VPN tunnel connectivity reliability and device tunnel/user tunnel interoperability. Many administrators have reported that Always On VPN connections fail to establish automatically at times, that only one tunnel comes up at a time (user tunnel or device tunnel, but not both), or that VPN tunnels fail to establish when coming out of sleep or hibernate modes. Have a look at the comments on this post and you’ll get a good understanding of the issues with Always On VPN.
You may encounter a scenario in which Outlook on Windows 10 reports that it is working offline while connected remotely via DirectAccess. The Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI) shows DirectAccess is in a connected state and all other internal resources are accessible.
