I've got the GUI package installed on a Windows 7 SP1 Ultimate 64-bit system, OpenVPN GUI v1.0.3, OpenVPN v2.2.1 Win32-MSVC++ [SSL] [LZO2] built on Jul 1 2011).
As many posts have noted, under Windows 7, with UAC enabled, OpenVPN fails all attempts to set up routes - IPAPI and ROUTE.EXE.
This topic:
https://forums.openvpn.net/topic7901.html and some others suggest disabling UAC, or running OpenVPN elevated, or adding the local user to the Network Administrators group.
I argue that all of these, though they would work, are undesirable from a security and system management point of view, as they defeat some of the key security advantages of Windows 7.
I beg that OpenVPN, in its Windows port, be updated to separate the privileged component (which should be configurable to start with the system as a Service) from the GUI, with permissions able to be granted (by an administrator) to users or groups to use the GUI to control the service, without the need for the logged in user to have any special privileges at all, and without the need to use/ respond to UAC.
Thanks,
Jay Libove, CISSP, CIPP, CISM
