There are 2 ways to secure your internet connection with a virtual private network or VPN service. The first way is by downloading the VPN application with multiple security protocols built in it. The second way is to manually configure the VPN connection directly into your operating system. Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol or L2TP is one of the protocols used by VPN providers. However, L2TP on its own, it is not secure enough. This is why it is usually further secured with Internet Protocol Security or IPSec. In this tutorial we will show you the ,step-by-step procedure on how to manually setup a VPN’s L2TP connection with IPSec on your Windows XP operating system.
Setting up L2TP on Windows XP
1- From the taskbar, click on the “Start” button to open the “Start Menu”
2- From the “Start Menu” click on “Control Panel”
3- Double click on “Network Connections” or, if your “Control Panel” looks different, double click on “Network and Internet Connections” and then double click on “Network Connections”
4- From the panel on the left of the window, click on “Create a new connection”
5- In the “New Connection Wizard” window, click on “Next”
6- Click to select the radio button labeled “Connect to the network of my workplace” and click on “Next”
7- Click to select the radio button labeled “Virtual Private Network connection” and click on “Next”
8- In the field labeled “Company Name”, enter the name you want to give to the VPN L2TP connection (It is sometimes preferred to give it the name of your VPN provider) and click on “Next”
9- If asked if you want to dial the initial connection, click to select the radio button labeled “Do not dial the initial connection” and click on “Next”
10- In the field labeled “Hostname or IP address” enter the hostname or the IP address of the VPN server you want to connect to (This can be found on your VPN provider’s website but make sure that the server supports L2TP) and click on “Next”
11- If you have a smart card installed on your computer, then click to select the radio button labeled “Do not use my smart card” and click on “Next”
12- If you have more than one account on your system then either click to select the radio button labeled “Anyone’s use” to have it setup for all the accounts or “My use only” if you want to set it up on your account only and then click on “Next”
13- Click to check the checkbox labeled “Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop” and then click on “Finish”
14- In the field labeled “Username” enter your VPN account username
15- In the field labeled “Password” enter your VPN account password
16- Click to check the checkbox labeled “Save this username and password for the following users:” and then click on “Properties”
17- From the top of the “Properties” window click to open the tab labeled “Networking”
18- Click to open the drop-down menu labeled “Type” and select “L2TP IPSec VPN”
19- From the top of the “Properties” window, click to open the tab labeled “Security”
20- Click on “IPSec Settings…”
21- In the “IPSec Settings…” window, click to check the checkbox labeled “Use pre-shared key for authentication”
22- In the field labeled “Key”, enter the pre-shared key of the L2TP server you chose to connect to (you will find this in the same list of servers that you got from the server address on the VPN provider’s website) and click on “Ok”
23- Click on “Ok” in the “Properties” window to close it
24- Back in the connection window, click on “Connect”
25- Once the connection is established, a pop-up message will appear next to the network icon in the system tray stating “(Connection Name) is now connected)”
Once the connection is established, this means that you have successfully created a VPN’s L2TP connection with IPSec on your Windows XP operated computer.
