TAP adapter drivers fail to install on Windows 10

[jonasmyles]

Hello, I hope this is the right place for this.

So my company has now a VPN system to connect to our workstations and work drives, etc.

I installed OpenVPN as requested. On the middle of the installation process, a pop-up window appears, indicating that the TAP virtual network adapter failed to install.

When I try to connect to the VPN, the certificate is in the config folder, I login and it says I should have a TAP Adapter installed.

I run the addtap.bat as admin
I run the delalltap.bat and the addtap.bat
Both of these fail. (tapinstall.exe failed...)

I open device manager, I see an unknown device listed in the Other Devices category and in ROOT\NET\0000, it’s tap 0901
I try to update its drivers. It looks up on the internet, no results. Then, I redirect it to the folder C:\Program Files\TAP-Windows\driver

It says it has found the driver (OemVista.inf) and is installing.
Finishes saying driver has been found but windows failed to install it. The configuration registry database is damaged/corrupted.

I find this frustrating, as I’ve tried everything. Disabled firewall, antivirus, uninstalling antivirus results in the same thing, tried other versions of OpenVPN, always the same thing. I saw other posts regarding the same subject, but they are quite old.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[TinCanTech]

Try this:
https://build.openvpn.net/downloads/rel ... -Win10.exe

[jonasmyles]

Try this:
https://build.openvpn.net/downloads/rel ... -Win10.exe

Thanks, TinCanTech.
Unfortunately, this did not work. It fails without even requesting to confirm the instalation of TAP.

Does it help to know that this computer used to have windows 7 but it was upgraded to windows 10?

Are there any other solutions? Thank you so much.

[TinCanTech]

There is a long list on the page above you can try.

You may need to fix up your registry ..

Take a look here for errors: C:\Windows\inf\setupapi.dev.log

[jonasmyles]

Unable to determine presence of driver package. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Unable to determine presence of driver package 'oemvista.inf'. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Unable to determine if driver package 'oemvista.inf' is already registered. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Failed to create driver package object 'oemvista.inf_amd64_6d4bec28a2ef0cdf' in DRIVERS database node. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Failed to register driver package 'C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\oemvista.inf_amd64_6d4bec28a2ef0cdf\oemvista.inf'. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Failed to import driver package into Driver Store. Error = 0x000003F1
...
Driver package import failed for device.
...
Failed to install device instance 'ROOT\NET\0000'. Error = 0x000003f1

-------------Is there anything i can do about this? Thank you for your help. About te registry, do i have to go to ROOT\NET\0000?
I can´t seem to find the TAP network adapter with the other networ adapters. What's the page above that i can check for errors? Tat one sent me an installation package (.exe) Thanks again.

[TinCanTech]

From openvpn-users mailing list:

Assuming 9.23.x works it "should be easy"(tm) to figure out what the
difference is. Or maybe something changed in Windows which causes this
misbehavior. Fully removing all traces of tap-windows6 from the system,
e.g. with Remote-Tapwindows.ps1:

<https://github.com/mattock/tap-windows-scripts>

Can you guys try if that full removal helps with this?

Samuli

That may help.

[TinCanTech]

Does it help to know that this computer used to have windows 7 but it was upgraded to windows 10?

Indeed, this seems likely:

I looked at Ralf's logs and they show that - for whatever reason - the
tap-windows installer chose to install the Windows 7 version of
tap-windows6 on those Windows 10 instances. The Digital signer in the
device properties should show "Microsoft Windows Hardware
Compatibility Publisher" (=attestation signature), not "OpenVPN Inc"
(cross-signed).

From the same email.

Try the removal script and then try installing the correct TAP driver. (The one above)

[jonasmyles]

Try the removal script and then try installing the correct TAP driver. (The one above)

I ran the script with PowerShell, resulting in "No tap-windows drivers found from the driver store".

After this, i installed the tap installation package you sent. It failed, once again.

When trying to install through device manager it comes out
"Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device.
Windows found driver software for your device but encoutered an error while attempting to install it.
The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file. The file is likely corrupt or the victim of tampering."

Please let me know if there are any other solutions. Thank you so much for helping me.

[TinCanTech]

I ran the script with PowerShell, resulting in "No tap-windows drivers found from the driver store".

Sounds like a good start.

After this, i installed the tap installation package you sent. It failed, once again.

Dang..

When trying to install through device manager it comes out
"Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device.
Windows found driver software for your device but encoutered an error while attempting to install it.
The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file. The file is likely corrupt or the victim of tampering.

This is at least a new piece of information which I can pass on to the Devs.

Please let me know if there are any other solutions. Thank you so much for helping me.

Thanks for persevering with us.

Use the removal script to clean up failures and then look here for more possible options:
https://build.openvpn.net/downloads/releases/

There are lots of versions you can try, hopefully something will work and we can investigate further.

[jonasmyles]

When trying to install through device manager it comes out
"Windows encountered a problem installing the driver software for your device.
Windows found driver software for your device but encoutered an error while attempting to install it.
The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file. The file is likely corrupt or the victim of tampering.

Thanks a lot! I am sorry, im afraid the text

The hash for the file is not present in the specified catalog file.”

is indeed:

“The configuration registry database is corrupt.”

The one I sent before is not what really appeared. I didn’t had my computer with me at the time and I searched, but turns out that was a different error. Please ignore it.
I will try all of the other versions as you said they’d likely work.

Thanks again for being persistent and helpful and I am sorry for my mistake.

[TinCanTech]

Let us know your results in a list if possible.