Nortel SSLVPN Error Message: There are no netdirect adapters on this system

Last week I ran into a situation where I could no longer log into a client's VPN at all. I could login to the web portal continaing the VPN's SSL based Java Applet, but the applet wouldn't start properly.  This was on a machine that I'd been using with their VPN for several years - what gives?  After several remote help sessions I finally brought the laptop with me to my last onsite visit and after toiling for untold hours the problem is now resolved.

The rest of this post is coutesy of Kevin Donohue at the PGA of America.  I'm blogging the solution to this problem partly so I can find it again later and partly because Kevin told me that he kept running across my two year old Vista TAP Adapter not assigned post in Google, which was also regarding their VPN - why not add another post for him to find?

This is usually caused by the user not disconnecting from NetDirect properly.

Here's how to fix the issue

1. Delete the following Files and Folders:
   c:\windows\temp\NetDirect folder (if exists)
   
   Netdirect components (named NetDirect and NetClient) found in:
   c:\Windows\Downloaded Program Files folder
   c:\Documents and Settings\<current user profile>\Local Settings\temp\
   
2. Uninstall the TAP-Win32 NetDirect Adapter
   In Device Manager (right click My Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Network Adapters), remove the TAP-Win32 NetDirect Adapter
   
3. We also need to uninstall the driver components manually. Windows will always try to install them from its backup unless we remove them. Here's how:
   
   Open a terminal and enter the following commands:   
   (Please note that "type" is a command to enter.  It's like "cat" in Linux)
   type c:\windows\inf\oem*.inf |find /i "NetDirect">>inf_list.txt
   notepad inf_list.txt
   
   Scroll down the page until you find the names of the INF files that contain reference to Netdirect client.
   Delete both the <inf file name>.inf  and  <inf file name>.pnf
   
   Example:
   If the files oem207.inf and oem119.inf both contain references to NetDirect, then del c:\windows\inf\oem207.* and del c:\windows\inf\oem119.*
   
4. Delete Java and Browser cache
   
   For Java, go to Control Panel -> Java
   On the General Tab in the Temporary Internet Files area, click on Settings and Delete, then OK
   
   For IE, Chrome, Opera and Firefox, just delete your history as you normally would.

Now the NetDirect TAP driver is completely uninstalled from the system. You can login again and it will install normally.