Windows 10 VPN – Troubleshoot Slow DNS Lookups with VPN

dnsnetworkingvpnwindows 10

I can't seem to figure this one out. I was using windows 7 and I had no issues with being VPN'ed into work and browsing websites. Since switching to Windows 10, it's another matter.

Windows 10 and no VPN, no issue. I can ping google.com and immediately get a response as well as the IP address.
Windows 10 and VPN, The initial ping takes a good 10 seconds before getting responses. Once I get the IP it's fast, but the initial DNS lookup is slow. I can ping addresses directly and there's no delay so it's definitely DNS related.

I've done this in PowerShell:

Get-VpnConnection

Set-VpnConnection -Name "VPN Name" -SplitTunneling $True

I believe it works in the sense that very little traffic goes through the VPN, but DNS requests are still slow.

I've also disabled IPv6 from the VPN connection.

If it were possible to set the DNS servers to be used by the vpn connection, I think my issue would be gone, but I can't set them. The properties button on IPv4 doesn't do anything… at least not for the VPN connection.

Any other suggestions to get this to work smoothly?

Best Answer

If in the current version of Windows 10, VPN seems to have too many problems, this might leave only two options :

  1. Wait for VPN to be fixed in Windows 10
  2. Downgrade to Windows 7, as described below :

If you have installed Windows 10 over Windows 7, and you have kept the resulting folder C:\Windows.old, then you can use it to return to Windows 7.

This is the procedure :

  • In the Windows 10 Start menu select Settings
  • Click Update & Security
  • Under "Go back to a previous version of Windows", click Get started
  • Enter some angry message text into the "Why are you going back?" screen
  • Click Next and wait, as this will take some time
  • You will need to have your password to Windows 7 once the process is finished.

This is further explained in detail with screenshots in the article : How to downgrade Windows 10.

If you have deleted the Windows.old folder, a clean install of Windows 7 is probably the only remaining way to downgrade.

Ensure that you have a complete backup of your data before starting.

(Note: Remember that this answer is from 2015.)

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