Hi guys,

Pardon the basic questions, I am MCP certified on WS2003, but this is my first time putting it into practice.

I'm now successfully able to VPN into our WS2003 server, and I have a few questions (the client computer is running XP Pro):

1. Why did I have to delete my mapped network drive to our server shared folder just to access it when I'm logged in on VPN? That doesn't seem right; will I have to unmap every time I'm on the road just to be able to access it?

2. When I clicked on the shared folder after accessing it via Network Places -> Entire Network -> Microsoft Windows Network -> Mydomain -> SharedFolder, it requested my username and password, and when I provided this info, it gave me an error message that I could not use this username because it is what I used to log in. I finally went around this by using another administrator username/password (it would accept just anyone's login, only administrators, so how do I allow standard users access to the server over the network?), and now that I try it again (disconnect/connect via VPN), it accesses the folder without the username/password prompt. I suppose it remembers the good credentials that I supplied the first time, and uses those to access it from that point on?

3. (Bear in mind that I'm inside our network with a VPN connection to the server right now): Since I'm inside our network, I can't tell if I actually accessed the shared server folder THROUGH the VPN connection, or through our LAN connection. If I'm on the road and VPN to the server, can I access the shared folder by (My Network Places -> Entire Network -> Microsoft Network -> WorkDomain -> Server -> SharedFolder)? Is that correct? The reason I didn't test outside of the network yet is because I am still figuring out a few firewall issues I'm having. Maybe this will help you to determine if my access was actually through the VPN connection:

ipconfig lists IP addresses for both my LAN connection and for my VPN connection, and in the server, under RRAS -> MyServer -> Remote Access Clients, I am listed there, 1 connection, and it is my username.

Thanks in advance for the help! This real-world experience has been a crash-course and shown me how little I really know, regardless of all my studies/degrees/certifications!

J'ai des fourmis dans mon epee! -Cyrano

1. When you're on the road, you shouldn't have any network connections to disconnect. If you have a roaming profile or folder redirect to a network drive, it could require you to disconnect to log into the VPN.

2. Yes, for any connection, windows will cache the account information for a specific connection until that session ends.

3. Yes, you should be able to access all of your shares.

As for the problem with not being able to login with account you're logged in with, could be due to allowing only 1 login per account.

Ok I think I know what the problem is. I just had the same problem with connecting, but my connection problem was not being able to remote desktop to any of the computer in the LAN at my house.
I found that if you are connecting though a network of your own, then the ip tables can't be the same on both network. If you connect though a router to the internet, then though another router to the office network, You must make sure that computers don't have the same ip rang on both side of either netwok.
So if your ip on the office lan network rang is 192.168.1.1 and subnet is 255.255.255.0(like most defaults are)and you computer trying to connect to the share is on the same IP Rang then you have to change connecting computer ip and or subnet. 192.168.11.1 subnet 255.255.255.0 would work or a subnet 255.255.255.128 and the IP address 192.168.1.129/192. Let me know if this works.