Key Takeaway (TL;DR): Wintun is WireGuard's ultra-fast Windows Layer-3 TUN driver used by modern proxy clients. Recurring adapter initialization errors stem from zombie network devices remaining after abrupt process terminations. Resolving this requires showing hidden devices in Device Manager to uninstall stale Wintun adapters, resetting the TCP/IP stack via
netsh, or updatingwintun.dllto version 0.14+.
1. Purging Zombie Wintun Adapters
Inspect Device Manager with "Show hidden devices" enabled and remove orphaned tunnel interfaces.