1. Download OpenVPN
The first thing you need to do to connect to OVPN is to download the correct OpenVPN GUI for your Windows version.
If you're running Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2019, download this installer.
- Clicking the OpenVPN GUI icon on desktop will just open up an icon on the icon tray on taskbar at your monitor's bottom-right (pointed by red arrow). Double left-click it will bring up nothing. You have to right-click on the icon and its interface will show up. It is just Settings and Exit.
- OpenVPN GUI bundled with the Windows installer has a large number of new features compared to the one bundled with OpenVPN 2.3. One of major features is the ability to run OpenVPN GUI without administrator privileges. For full details, see the changelog. The new OpenVPN GUI features are documented here.
Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 users should use this installer.
Double click on the OpenVPN GUI icon on your Desktop. If you don't have it on Desktop, go to the search field at the bottom left (near the start button). If you don't see the search field, click on the magnifying glass icon and it will appear. Type 'openvpn' in the field and hit the Enter key.
2. Install OVPN
To begin the installation, double-click the file you downloaded in the previous step. Go through the installation process.
3. Download the configuration you want
4. Import configuration file
OpenVPN's icon should be in the activity tray in the right corner of your screen. You might need to click on the arrow in order to display the icon with the padlock. When you've found the icon, right click on it and choose Import file.
5. Connect to OVPN
Go ahead and right click on the OpenVPN icon again. This time, choose to Connect. When prompted, enter the username and password you used when creating your OVPN account.
6. Finished
1password 5 4 2 – powerful password manager. You should now be connected to OVPN and be able to browse the internet safely. To make sure everything was set up correctly, please check the dashboard to verify that you are connected.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between freeware and commercial tunXten versions?
There is a trial period of 30 days during which you can enjoy using a fully functional application. After that, you have an option of purchasing a license or continue using the free version of the client. The only limitation of the freeware edition is that it always uses the default settings. It won't load any configuration changes you've made or custom actions you've defined for your OpenVPN configs. Note that changes to the actual OpenVPN configuration files are not affected by this. See the difference for example:
Licensed version
Note that you can still change anything you like, but the changes will only last for a working session and after you restart the application everything will be reverted back to defaults. Purchasing a license removes this limitation, and moreover - you won't have to reconfigure tunXten, it will load your previously saved preferences after the registration code is entered.What is all this OpenVPN stuff anyway, uh?
We believe the best way to get acquainted with the basics is to visit the official OpenVPN Community site, an abundance of useful documentation can be found there.
I noticed tunXten installs and uses some kind of Windows service, why is that?
OpenVPN requires administrative priviges for some operations, the most important of which is to actually make a connection. And one of the best security practices for Windows is not to use Administrator accounts for daily work. The tunXten service is designed to bridge the gap between commonly used restricted (or even guest) accounts and the need to do things requiring elevated privileges. The tunXten GUI transparently delegates all the necessary work to the service.
Does tunXten 'call home' or otherwise access external Internet resources?
By default tunXten is set up to periodically check for updates, so it accesses its website looking for a newer version, but it's a one-way communication - it only queries the information and does not send anything to the site. Besides, if you don't like this behavior you can disable it in the settings.
What are these TAP adapters and why do I need them?
A 'tap' device is a virtual ethernet adapter which is required by OpenVPN to create a secure connection and a TAP-Win32 adapter represents an endpoint of a VPN tunnel. So, basically, for every VPN connection there should be one TAP adapter as well. You can easily add/remove adapters using the Advanced tab of the tunXten settings dialog.
Is tunXten compatible with 64-bit Windows OS?
Yes, although tunXten executables are 32-bit binaries, they work perfectly on 64-bit Windows, in fact, we extensively use it every day on our workstations running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
I bought multiple licenses but received only one license key, is there something missing?
Everything is Ok, a single multi-license key permits you to use the software on multiple computers at the same time and the number of licenses bought is displayed in the About dialog:
Where does tunXten store OpenVPN configuration files?
There are two places where the application looks for OpenVPN configuration files upon its start:
Gui Openvpn Server
- System-wide location - the 'config' directory in its installation folder (if you're using the personal edition then generally the directory is not there as it's intended to be handled by sysadmins, see the details here. OpenVPN configuration files found there are available to every user of the system.
- Your personal storage - the 'tunXten' directory in the Application Data folder located in your Windows profile. These configurations are visible only to you.
Gui Openvpn Server Ubuntu
Exact full paths depend on many factors, such as where the application was installed, and which operating system you're using. But you don't need to riddle yourself with these technical details as tunXten itself can tell you exactly where these files are hiding. Just open the Setting dialog and at the bottom of the General page you can see all the locations:
Note: the system-wide path will not be shown if it doesn't exist.
Openvpn Gui Install
My antivirus/antimalware software tells me that tunXten (or its installer) imposes some threat for my system, can you explain?
Windows 10 Openvpn
No protection software is perfect, and even the most popular or sophisticated one is still prone to jumping to conclusions every now and then, making false positive decisions. We can absolutely assure you there are no threats or security concerns about our products. You can check it out yourself by grabbing the installer and submitting it to any online virus scan resource of your choice. In fact, we actually did so with version 1.0.4 and you can see the report here. Also, when someone tells us that their antivirus is complaining about our product, we don't just let the whole thing slide - we always try to reproduce the behavior and submit a false positive report to the antivirus vendor so they can fix the problem.