Error Connecting to VPN – Error 850: The Extensible Authentication Protocol type required for authentication…

Error 850: The Extensible Authentication Protocol type required for authentication of the remote access connection is not installed on your computer.Are you getting this error message when connecting to a virtual private network?

Error connecting to BLAH.

Error 850: The Extensible Authentication Protocol type required for authentication of the remote access connection is not installed on your computer.

I first saw this message after an attempt to VPN on a newly installed Windows 8 computer. After I fixed it I started to document it so I could share it on the blog, but I had no luck replicating it and I was feeling lazy at the time to spin up a VM. So you’ll only need to set this once and forget about it.

I would call this a “bug” personally, but it essentially comes down to a default authentication setting being unset depending on the type of VPN it is. I was connecting to a standard Microsoft’y PPTP network.

The fix is easy. I’ve documented the steps below:

1. Open the connection properties.

Connection Properties

5 May 2014 Edit: Several readers have reported they’re unable to access properties via the above method. The alternate method is to Open the Network and Sharing Center by right mouse clicking on the network icon in the system tray…

Network and Sharing Center via Control Panel

or via Control Panel…

Open Network and Sharing Center

Then click Change adapter settings…

Change Adapter Settings

Right mouse click on the VPN connection and click Properties…

Network Adapter Properties

As you can see, it’s incredibly easy in Windows 8 (grrr). End 5 May 2014 Edit.

2. Click the Security tab. Note the authentication radio buttons. Notice how neither of them are selected? It has therefore assumed a default option which isn’t appropriate for the network you are trying to connect to.

Security Properties

3. Select the correct authentication protocol. If it is a Microsoft PPTP implementation then try the following configuration:

Set Authentication

4. Click OK and attempt to connect again.

Let me know how you go. Do many of you also encounter this?

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