Outlook & Mapped Drive Problems Over VPN

[Guest Rafael]

Please could someone help?

 

I have a laptop running Windows XP Professional. I connect to the

corporate network via a VPN using Netgear ProSafe VPN Client. This

connection is established without problems.

 

I have 2 issues once connected over the VPN and these may or may not

be related:

 

1. Outlook will open however, it will not connect. I just see it

trying to connect and then it says 'Disconnected' in the bottom right

of the screen.

 

2. I cannot access the mapped drives to the corporate server either.

When I click on them to open, I get a message which reads as follows:

 

"An error occurred while reconnecting DRIVE to \\SERVER\SHARE,

Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use.

This connection has not been restored."

 

I'm fairly certain it's not the firewall (McAffee) as I get the same

problems even with the firewall disabled entirely.

 

Outlook configuration and mapped drives point to the server name but

I'm also fairly certain it's not name resolution as I've updated the

'hosts' file accordingly.

 

Everything works perfectly connected to the LAN.

 

I'm happy to answer any questions if further info is required. What

could it be? Any suggestions most welcome!

 

Thank you in advance.

[Guest Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Re: Outlook & Mapped Drive Problems Over VPN

 

Rafael <rafael_romano299@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Please could someone help?

>

> I have a laptop running Windows XP Professional. I connect to the

> corporate network via a VPN using Netgear ProSafe VPN Client. This

> connection is established without problems.

 

Apparently not! :)

>

> I have 2 issues once connected over the VPN and these may or may not

> be related:

>

> 1. Outlook will open however, it will not connect. I just see it

> trying to connect and then it says 'Disconnected' in the bottom right

> of the screen.

 

Can you ping your Exchange server by name?

>

> 2. I cannot access the mapped drives to the corporate server either.

> When I click on them to open, I get a message which reads as follows:

>

> "An error occurred while reconnecting DRIVE to \\SERVER\SHARE,

> Microsoft Windows Network: The local device name is already in use.

> This connection has not been restored."

 

Can you ping your server by name?

I'd recommend using a batch file login script rather than having Windows

remember the drive mapping.

 

net use * /del

net use x: \\server\share /persistent:no

net use y: \\server\anothershare /persistent:no

>

> I'm fairly certain it's not the firewall (McAffee) as I get the same

> problems even with the firewall disabled entirely.

>

> Outlook configuration and mapped drives point to the server name but

> I'm also fairly certain it's not name resolution as I've updated the

> 'hosts' file accordingly.

 

Well, can't say for sure. And you don't want to use hosts - you want to use

DNS & WINS, and if that isn't possible, LMHOSTS.

>

> Everything works perfectly connected to the LAN.

>

> I'm happy to answer any questions if further info is required. What

> could it be? Any suggestions most welcome!

>

> Thank you in advance.