Windows 7: Can connect to work via VPN but now what?

I have successfully set up a connection to my work PC from home using VPN but cannot view my network shares as like if I were connected directly in the office.

After I successfully connect, in Network and Sharing Center I see the VPN connection as a Active network and have a IP address for it as well as my regular home network IP address and connection. How do I now view shared contents on my work PC as well as shares on the other PC's in my work network?

if I go to Network (from my desktop) I can see my home network computers, but nothing from my work network. If I ping my work PC's network IP address (192.168.1.111) it fails, but I can ping my new "VPN" IP address that was just assigned to me (192.168.1.109) with success. So what are the steps to actually access my work network now that I have a successful connection?

Have you tried enabling the "Routing and Remote Access" service in Windows services?

It's usually disabled by default.

Sorry was on a little vacation, but back now. "Routing and Remote Access" service is started on both machines and still cannot access shares. Just to try, but still didn't work. I changed my home laptop's workgroup to the same as my work one and re-connected but the same problems.

Could it possibly have anyhting to do with IP addresses or subnets? On my home network my local IP address is 192.168.1.12 (notice the 2 digits) and when I log on to my work the "VPN" IP is 192.168.1.105 (notice the 3 digits) and the IP of my work computer on my work network is 192.168.1.114.
I dont really understand subnet masks but on my home network its 255.255.255.0 and on the "VPN" network its 255.255.255.255, but on my work network its the same 255.255.255.0.

Any thoughts on this or any other suggestions???

Assuming that the files are shared with the correct permissions on the work server side and that the incoming VPN connection is already set up which should be done by the network admin.

Virtual Private Network (VPN) - Enable Incoming VPN Connections

How to set up the correct permissions for VPN sharing. Sharing and Permissions

And you forwarded these ports on your router's firewall. PPTP TCP Port 1723
PPTP GRE TCP/UDP Ports 47

From what I have read you may also need to go to ipv6 properties of the VPN connection and uncheck' use default gateway on remote network.

You may also need to use the UNC path to access the folders or drive, though I believe the User name and password would usually work \\hostname\sharename

Thanks... I have already used those exact tutorials to originally set up my connection prior to your suggestion. There are only 2 slight differences that I have compared to your suggestions...
1st. I did not have port 47 forwarded
2nd. I did not have ipv6 enabled on the incoming VPN connection. I tried enabling it but could not find the "use default gateway on remote network" to uncheck it in the properties as your suggestion, and it also asks for a ipv6 prefix, which i dont know what to put (have never worked with ipv6 before), so I went back to disabling it.

Unfortunatelly I cannot check the connection until I get home and try but the only change would be the port 47 forwarded.

I have already tried accessing shares using the UNC path but with no luck. HOWEVER, I used the IP Address of the maching I am trying to connect to rather than the share name.

A quick thought... would my work machine have a second IP address thats "visible" from the VPN connection only? Logically thinking, if this is true, the client machine only knows the "server" by the VPN IP address then, and I am trying to access it through its local IP address causing the error. Is this a possibility?

I believe you would need to enter the WAN IP of the work server and the Domain name rather than the local LAN IP, then the User name and password of the machine you need to VPN with.

The uncheck the "use default gateway on remote" option may be available in the IPv4 properties of the VPN connection. You should be able to leave IPv6 enabled for this.

OK, so at home now and am able to connect successfully as usual. I've tried to UNC to the remote (work computer) via the VPN IP address and it actually worked. I also tried to connect via host name and that also worked.

Now my questions are as follows:
a) is there any way to browse OTHER computers' shares on my work network once connected? I've tried to UNC to each computer name as well as every IP address from ...101 to ...125 but nothing (except ...102 which happens to be the ip of the remote machine). I recall when setting up the incoming connection on my work computer there was an option stating something like "allow incoming connections to access my local network" which i checked to allow. But now that I can successfully connect to my remote computer is there any way to access other computers shared files/folders?

b)This is a long shot and not that important, but to go along with my previous question, is there any way (even if it be outside of a VPN connection) to connect to my work network and be able to browse through the computers shares through the network icon on my desktop or explorer as if I were physically connected in the office and do regularly at work? So it would be like I am just another computer on my work network, but I am actually at home?