Windows 7: Windows 7 VPN Problems

Hi All.

I am using Windows & Ultimate on my Desktop and my laptop PC's. Both are clean installs with only additional installs of Open Office and Avast running on them.

I have recently created an incoming VPN connection on the Desktop Machine using all the default settings and I am sat behind a router.

I set up a VPN connection on the laptop (to connect to the listening connection on the desktop) again using all the default settings and have attempted to connect.

I have also turned off Windows firewall on both machines for now (just habbit when I set new things up).

Unfortunatly I get an Error 720: A connection to the remote computer could not be established. You might need to change the network settings for this connection.

The information I can find on the web (reading between the lines) suggests it has something to do with different protocols on each machine. But I have checked this and everything is the same on both the laptop and the desktop. Which you would expect given they are clean installs from the same source.

I remember this error years ago with a VPN problem (in windows NT I think) and funnily enough all the information I can find on this error via google relates to old OS's and proprietory vpn clients servers etc.

Can anyone hel with this / had a similar problem?

Come on guys ...

someone must have tried to set up a VPN in Windows 7. I am after any sort of response, even if it is just to tell me it works fine for you!

=:-)

VPN(client) is working fine for me. Hm, ill try and tell you if it works for me connecting two Windows 7 over VPN.

edit: maybe when i find where did "manage connections" moved

Is your win 7 box set up to use homegroup, or workgroup. VPN to my job works. It was pretty straight foward once I changed my settings to workgroup

Solor: Thanks man, let me know how it goes! I can connect easily enough with the Windows 7 VPN client to my work VPN (which I am sure is not a Windows 7 VPN setup) LOL!, just not the local one I am trying to set up.

ZigZag: Yeah, I currently do have a homegroup set-up. Ill try and play around with the workgroup settings this afternoon!

In general I think the VPN client is ok. I have a funny feeling that it is just how windows 7 sets up its VPN listener. Like I said, it authenticates fine, but for some reason fails when it try's to register the machine on the network!

Hei All.

Thought I would let everyone who has been following this that I solved the problem outlined in my original post.

To fix the problem I change the VPN settings to allocated an IP address within a specific range (via the vpn wizard on the server machine). This way the client machine registers on the network fine.

My gut tells me that there has been some kind of IP conflict or something when I had the default settings ticked (i.e. DHCP sorts the IP allocating out).

Only problem with this I can forsee, is make sure that whatever range you specify on the Windows 7 server machine does not conflict with anything you have set up in your DHCP server (which in my case is running on my router).

But all is good.