Using VPN and Wireless

I'm having problems connecting to my work VPN while I'm on the internet wirelessly. I have a new laptop with Windows 7 Professional and I'm completely unable to connect to my VPN for more than a few seconds. I have to disconnect it in order to remain online. Originally my laptop had Windows 7 Home Premium, but I heard that the Home edition doesn't support VPN. So I purchased an upgrade to Professional and it still doesn't work. Any suggestions?

 

I had the same problem. My wireless router had a firewall that I had to disable for the VPN to function properly.

 

Agree. Some firewall software blocks VPN connections so you might check that first.

 

It's the VPN client through the OS. I use OB and my own router. Not sure about it being in conjunction to the one supplied...don't know what that means. But, there's only one router in the house and that's hooked directly in the OB box in the basement. I have played around with firewall settings (I was coached through that by another coworker), but even that didn't work. I've gotten to the point where it's a race against the machine. I log into the VPN, race through the folders to open all the documents I need, and then log off VPN and do my work with the already opened documents.

 

Well...that's tricky. On my desktop where I'm wired it's fine. However, on my laptop when I'm wireless it's not fine. I tried an ethernet cable and it's still not fine, but I don't know if I'm supposed to turn off the wireless while I have the ethernet cable or not.

 

Does the VPN have to somehow recognize your MAC address for your laptop? Maybe it only lets known addresses connect? That's all I got.

 

I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

I'll defer to your expertise on that. You would *think* that she simply would not be able to connect at all if it was a MAC address filtering issue but I don't know how that works on the server end.

 

Give us a call at home or mobile today and we will make a house call.

Hubby is working from home (for a few weeks) until I recover from surgery.

Ironically my MIL is here and has/had the same issues with her VPN. We did a crazy work around after trouble shooting with OB & on own own and she now stays connected to her VPN until the RSA token expires.

You know out #'s give us a shout and we'll be up to help fix it (if we can).

 

Okay, so just to renew this a bit -

purchased a new wireless-N router and tried to install - failed
obtained a static IP address so that I can use VPN at least on my hardwired computer and it worked once. So now I'm paying $14/month extra for a service that's not working AND that I used to get for free (using VPN, not static IP).

I'm at a loss. I cannot get my router to accept the static IP addresses. I can install it, but it's either one router or the other. Not in tandem. I cannot get my old router to accept the static IP address either.

All of this sucks because I'm using a VPN client through the OS that is FREE. I used to be able to do this for FREE. I don't understand what could possibly have changed to prevent me from using VPN. I truly do not understand.

Oh, and forget calling Openband. They're clueless. "Try calling your router manufacturer for assistance."