UPGRADING FROM 2.3-ALPHA1 AND EARLIER OpenVPN Windows installer went through major changes in 2.3-alpha2. To avoid any unexpected behavior, it is strongly suggested to upgrade as follows. First backup configuration files and certificates from your current installation; by default they're in C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config (32-bit Windows) C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenVPN\config (64-bit Windows) After this, stop the openvpn-gui or the openvpn service wrapper, if either of them is running and uninstall OpenVPN. Finally, remove the OpenVPN install directory entirely (e.g. using Windows Explorer as administrator). Finally, install the new version of OpenVPN and copy over your configuration files and certificates, which now go to C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config provided you did not install the 32-bit version on 64-bit Windows. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR WINDOWS VISTA/7 USERS Note that on Windows Vista, you will need to run the OpenVPN GUI with administrator privileges, so that it can add routes to the routing table that are pulled from the OpenVPN server. You can do this by right-clicking on the OpenVPN GUI desktop icon, and selecting "Run as administrator". GENERAL QUICKSTART FOR WINDOWS The OpenVPN Client requires a configuration file and key/certificate files. You should obtain these and save them to OpenVPN's configuration directory, usually C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config. You can run OpenVPN as a Windows system service or by using the client GUI. To use the OpenVPN GUI, double click on the desktop icon or start menu icon. The OpenVPN GUI is a system-tray applet, so an icon for the GUI will appear in the lower-right corner of the screen. Right click on the system tray icon, and a menu should appear showing the names of your OpenVPN configuration files, and giving you the option to connect. BUILDING OPENVPN FOR WINDOWS Official OpenVPN Windows releases are cross-compiled on Linux using the openvpn-build buildsystem: https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/BuildingUsingGenericBuildsystem First setup the build environment as shown in the above article. Then fetch the openvpn-build repository: git clone https://github.com/OpenVPN/openvpn-build.git Review the build configuration: openvpn-build/generic/build.vars openvpn-build/windows-nsis/build-complete.vars Build (unsigned): cd openvpn-build/windows-nsis ./build-complete Build (signed): cd openvpn-build/windows-nsis ./build-complete --sign --sign-pkcs12=\ --sign-pkcs12-pass= \ --sign-timestamp=""