VPN & Remote Desktop

[Paula]

I hope someone can help, I'm confused! I have an XP pro
peer to peer network in my office which has a BT
broadband link to the internet. I want to be able to
access the "Server" (which is of course an XP pro PC)
from home (an XP pro laptop)

From what I've read this should be easy. However, so far
I've just tried using dial up (I can't work out if and
how I can use the broadband connection) I can connect two
ways; by creating a VPN and am able to connect to my own
PC and use the network but it's slow. I can also use
remote desktop over the VPN link which is much quicker.
Any ideas why?

I'm not really sure what I'm doing here, I've read a lot
about needing routers and specific ports configured but I
can't really work out how or why. I'm unsure about
security, am I now vunerable to anyone dialing in (I read
the firewall gets disbaled).

If I use the VPN without remote desktop, can I just log
on directly to our "Server" and not lose an office PC, as
with remote desktop? How do I dial into the broadband
connection on my "server"?

I hope this makes more sense to you than it does to me!!
Thanks in anticipation of your help.
Paula

 

[Amit Padalkar [MSFT]]

Hi,

Since your "Server" has Win XP Pro, you can try and make use of "Incoming
connections" feature. However, this feature allows only single connection
per media type(VPN, direct and analog). In simple words, you will be able to
have maximim 3 simultaneous connections provided that each one falls into
different category. e.g. You won't be able to make two simultaneous VPN
connections but 1VPN, 1 Dialup and 1 direct connection will work fine.

After setting up "Incoming connections" on remote machine to accept VPN
connections, it would act as small VPN server that accepts single VPN
connection at a time. More information about "Incoming connections" can be
found at
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/using/productdoc/en/2ndlvl_networking.asp
under "VPN and incoming connections" node.

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

 

[Paula]

Hi Amit,

Thanks for that, I have set up incoming connections but
am still unsure of what's happening, so sorry but I do
have a few questions!
1 Are you saying I can dial into "incoming connections"
without configuring VPN?
2 Can I connect directly to my "Server" via it's
broadband connection? If so how?
3 Can I discount the need for remote desktop altogether?
4 Remote desktop seems to perform better than the VPN
connection, can I do anything about that?

Thanks again
Paula