Cisco Anyconnect Support for Windows 10

Well, its that time again. A new Microsoft operating system was released today - one that is HIGHLY anticipated and promises to address many of the frustrations experienced by some users of Windows 8 or 8.1. Personally, I have enjoyed 8, and appreciated the slight modifications delivered in 8.1, but I have only used them on touch enabled devices (my Surface Pro, Pro 3, and Dell Venue).  I think that was a large factor in my happiness.

My most popular blog posts (still generating hits) were the ones that assisted the Corporate users of Surface Pro hardware with getting Cisco AnyConnect working. I will try to assist those people again, by jumping on the grenade early and documenting in an available location again. So without further ado, here is Cisco's official support statement regarding Windows 10 support:


AnyConnect Compatibility with Microsoft Windows 10.X
AnyConnect 3.1MR10 (3.1.10010) and later are compatible with Windows 10 official release.

Technical Assistance Center (TAC) support will be available beginning on 7/29/2015. For best results, we recommend a clean install of AnyConnect on Windows 10 system and not an upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1. If you are planning to perform an upgrade from Windows 7/8/8/1 with AnyConnect pre-installed, make sure that you first upgrade AnyConnect prior to upgrading the Operating System. The Network Access Manager module must be uninstalled prior to upgrading to Windows 10. After the first upgrade is complete, it can be re-installed on the system. You may also choose to fully uninstall AnyConnect and re-install one of the supported versions after upgrading to Windows 10.

For my own personal journey, I will be backing up my configuration files FIRST. These are located in the following directory:

C:\ProgramData\Cisco\Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client\Network Access Manager\system

I have a zipped archive of the configuration.xml file, and will be copying back into that directory once I have:

• Uninstalled my Anyconnect client
• Upgraded successfully to Windows 10
• Performed a "clean" installation of Anyconnect using anyconnect-win-3.1.10010-pre-deploy-k9.iso

Any issues encountered I will address and document with due diligence, in the hopes that it will make peoples lives easier. If you have any tips or feedback, please feel free to share it!

Please do not request copies of the ISO - this is licensed Cisco software and as such is subject to a valid licensing agreement being in place for entitlement. I was able to quickly download the ISO by logging into Cisco TAC, and navigating to:

Downloads > Home Products > Security > VPN and Endpoint Security Clients> Cisco VPN Clients> AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client >AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client v3.x> AnyConnect VPN Client Software-3.1.10010

Looking forward to the feedback - happy computing!