JayPSC

Is this possible? Instead of connecting via a main server can I just connect to my friends pc using VPN then start a LAN game? Surely the 2 pcs would just think that it's a normal LAN?

Had a quick go but it doesn't seem to be working, any ideas?

Thunder77

Got this working with a mate of mine. He was running Win 2000 server or even Win 2003 (not sure). After setting up login and opening up certain ports on his router it worked a charm.

JayPSC

Hmm, my pc is connecting to his fine & although we have the same workgroup specified we cant seem to see each other, which i assume should be the key to getting this working?

ozzy

Workgroup uses NETBIOS and this isn't routable. Hence you can't see computer names across a VPN routed connection. You would need to install WINS or configure the local hosts/lmhosts file.

That's all just Microsoft stuff; most LAN games use just TCP/IP to talk to each other. What games are you trying to get working?

Stefan

JayPSC

Ahh we;ll need to start playing then, trying to get warcraft3 working

JayPSC

On another note: Does this mean if I wanted to view files on my pc over a VPN from remote location I'd have to set things up differently?

Jay

ozzy

Hi Jay,

Depends how you wish to view them since there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Microsoft networking uses NetBIOS to provide file/print sharing. This can run on top of common protocols such as TCP/IP, IPX or Netbeui. It will not route, so connecting two network segments (VPN over the Internet in your case), won't allow you to automaticall see these NetBIOS names i.e. workstation names, shared folders, printers, etc..

You can cheat by using a manual NET USE command to connect to a remote share (if you know the name). e.g. NET USE \\192.168.10.2\MyShare

You could use Remote Desktop as another method of viewing remote files. Like I say, there's different ways to achieve the same thing, just depends on what you want to do and what's the best/simplest method.

Stefan

JayPSC

Ok cool, just about to go pick my lappy up from being repaired so I'll have to have a bit of a play this evening :d

ozzy

So, would you want to connect from your laptop into a remote VPN (either home LAN or your office)?

If so, then it depends on the remote VPN since there's different standards. With our office I can use either a 3rd-party VPN client (NetScreen) or the client built into XP. You would need some form of VPN client on the laptop eitherway.

At the end of the day, VPN is just giving you a secure network connection and if you're connecting from a 56K modem it's not going to be fast.

A lot of our laptop users use the VPN to make the connection secure, then use Remote Desktop to connect to the office to view files or e-mail.

We've web-enabled Outlook to give them a fast way of viewing e-mails if that's all they want to do.

They could still connect a drive letter to one of our office servers, but if they wanted to open something like a 1Mb Word document it's gonna take a few minutes to open over a 56K line.

Hence why people prefer to use tools such as Remote Desktop, VNC or Terminal Server to give them best of both worlds.

Stefan