Automatically Connect to OpenVPN Server on Boot

Question

I have been looking online for an answer to starting an OpenVPN client on boot. Every tutorial I have looked at only starts it when a user logs in. How do I set up Windows to automatically connect to the OpenVPN Server on boot?

Solution

From Run OpenVPN as a service:

1. Ensure 'Install Service' mode box is checked when installing OpenVPN Client
2. Open %WinDir%\system32\services.msc and set OpenVPN to Automatic Start mode.

When OpenVPN runs as a service, it will start a separate OpenVPN process for each configuration file (*.ovpn) it finds in %ProgramFiles%\OpenVPN\config\.

You can edit the registry to confirm/change the directory the service wrapper checks, what extension it checks for, which version of the openvpn client is run, and where the logs are kept. See the link above.