Ok some more info… I ran into the exact symptom of deadlock on another machine. This one did not have Odyssey client or Cisco VPN. Rather, it had Microsoft Firewall enabled on the network interfaces. I turned off the firewall and haven’t seen a lock occur so far.
Probably this is some other sort of software you use on both of these systems. It is impossible to say more without deep analysis of drivers installed. Windows Firewall should not make any problem.
Another thought I had is how well does the framework work with power management. I had let the system sit sniffing packets for awhile and the power stuff kicked in to turn off the monitor. Would the OS be foolish enough to power down the NIC even though it’s hooked and still getting packets?
WinpkFilter intercept binding between protocol and NIC driver and not the NIC itself. So if OS will turn off the NIC you won’t see any packets from this NIC until OS power it back on.