How to VPN into my home PC ?

[denivan]

Hey, at the moment at home I'm running Internet Connection Sharing on my Windows XP desktop to connect my iPAQ through ethernet to the internet and share files.

Now I want to find a way to acces my desktop's files when I'm on the road. Terminal services isn't a sollution because it's too bandwith intensive for a GPRS connection :( . Anyway, I've installed the standard Windows XP VPN server connection, I've selected which user can have access , I've added an IP range that may be used by VPN connections and I though I was good to go. Now it seems to me that the VPN option in the PocketPC 2k2 OS really doesn't offer you all that much. I've entered my PC's IP in the VPN tab and in the modem tab I've entered my normal GPRS connection. Can anyone tell me what more I need to do ? Frankly I'm clueless, I've been looking on the net but can't find a solution, so can anyone help me ?

Kind regards and thanks in advance

Ivan

[cliss]

I have successfully done an ActiveSync over the internet using an XP VPN server run on my computer. That's the good news. The bad news is, I've only accomplished it once. Let me explain.

In order to get it all working, I set up a VPN server on my XP Pro machine, probably the same way you did. The only "tricky" part was that I found the best way for me to set up the TCP/IP settings was to have my computer assign an address range even though I have a router which is my network's DHCP server.

Also, keep in mind (and this is VERY IMPORTANT) that you <u>CANNOT</u> establish a successful VPN connection to a network on the same subnet. In other words, if my local IP is 192.168.1.100 and I want to VPN into my home network, on which all the computers are 192.168.1.x, that WILL NOT WORK. You have to make sure you're on different subnets. Furthermore, if you're going through a router to make the connection, you have some other issues you must deal with, which I can explain if need be.

With that said, I think you've figured all that out.

So, on to my Toshiba e740. In the "Connections" control panel applet, I have set it such that (when I'm on the road), I connect to "Internet Settings" (that's the top one), when needed I connect to "Work" (middle), and my network card connects to "The Internet" (bottom). I should note that when I want to ActiveSync wirelessly at home, I change those same values to, respectively, Internet/Internet/Work.

Moving on, I used the "Modify..." button under the middle setting to set up my VPN connection. I simply entered a name, my address, and I didn't touch any other options.

When I attempt to ActiveSync from the road, I can always establish a successful VPN session, and share files, but the problem comes in when I attempt to sync. 99% of the time, my PocketPC will try to connect, and hang. I logged into my computer remotely using VNC on a local desktop to see what was up, and my computer thought it was connected to a "Guest". Yet, simultaneously my Toshiba is still trying to connect.

Therein lies the problem.

Once, and only once, I was able to get it to ActiveSync appropriately, and I have no freakin' clue what I did to cause it. I have yet to break the code on this one.

I hope that info helps; let me know if you come up with a fix or have other questions.

-Casey

EDIT: I just noticed you said you're using ICS. Bear in mind you may have to play with port forwarding as I mentioned briefly above in order to establish a VPN session. Can you establish a session, or are you stuck on that step?