Upgraded Wireshark, Got Npcap, VPN connections stop working

As an infrequent user of Wireshark, when I ran the installed version a couple of days ago, I was prompted to upgrade to v3.2.2 from v2.4.4 on my Windows 8.1 x64 machine.

The upgrade recommended removing WinPCap (manually) and replacing it with Npcap .9986. After the obligatory reboot, I found that none of my Windows VPN connections worked any longer. When I clicked on "connect", Taskmgr showed explorer.exe as "not responding" and Device Manager listed all the associated Wan Miniport devices with exclamation marks and the status of "This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)" until the connection attempt timed out at which point Explorer started responding again and the Miniport devices all went back to hidden.

Uninstalling Npcap didn't help. Uninstalling Wireshark didn't help. Rebooting after the uninstalls didn't help, either. The only thing that got the functionality back was to do a System Restore to the previous day.

After the System Restore, I confirmed that all of the VPN connections were working again then tried reinstalling Wireshark. A reboot was required again and after the reboot I got exactly the same result - couldn't connect to any VPNs.

After another System Restore, and on the advice of Wireshark users, I reinstalled Wireshark but did not install npcap, opting instead for the original Winpcap. After another reboot, I confirmed that the VPN connections were all working and also that Wireshark was operating correctly. All good.

The version of npcap installed appears to have been bundled up with Wireshark and I notice that v.9989 is available. I reviewed the changelog between 9986 and 9989 but didn't notice anything directly related to this issue.

If there is more detail I can provide, let me know.

Regards

David Stafford

Start by reproducing the failure on Windows 8.1 x64 with Wireshark 3.2.2 and Npcap .9986, then compare the same VPN connections with WinPcap installed instead. Done means VPN connections work reliably after installing Npcap, or the incompatibility is isolated and documented.