Hi.

I really don't want to write a book here on what's wrong but, this is my setup in a small office:

SERVER running SBS 2003 SP2, DHCP, DNS, RRAS setup with PPTP vpn.
some file shares, 2 to be exact, basic file server with 1 current user connecting remotely to work from home occasionally.

Remote machine, is an Asus Laptop, win XP pro SP2 etc etc, while at the office, everything works perfectly fine, can login to DOMAIN no problem, access shares etc, no problem.
- software on the machine: CA Internet Security Suite 2007 (firewall, virus, spyware, spam-control) set up to allow all VPN traffic to pass through a SAFE labeled connection on ETH0.
client machine does not use wireless.

Problem: when client laptop is at home, when double clicking on the VPN icon on the desktop (windows vpn) it just doesn't connect. It used to about 3 months ago, and then just quit.

my investigations:
- spyware/virus/trojan/malware/spam removal alllll clean!
- registry scan/fix done multiple times.
- deleted all network connections, and rebooted, tried again, no luck
- temp/system cleanup,
- dial-a-fix on all issues,
- spybot scan
- ipconfig /flushdns
- reconfigured server, ran all above maintenance on server too.

connection actually works perfectly fine like it should on my laptop. (running macbook pro w/parallels XP Pro VM.

I've tried everything i can think of, and asked a few other techs I know, and it seems it might be a networking, tcp issue, maybe something with the clients connection, but I'm using Rogers, and he's using rogers, and we have the exact same setup, except he cannot get access.

at this point im thinkin about reformatting his machine, but, there is one last thing I wanted to try before I gave up, which is ask for all of your help AND do a tcp/winsock fix. (not sure if that will work but, its worth a shot)

ANY HELP would be appreciated! Thanks for all your help! I've been trying things left right and center for about the last 3 months since we were unable to get access.

for the time being I'm having him use a RDP connection into the server, but that's not very safe.

Also, if its possible, I'd like to step up the security on the VPN to L2TP, any idea how to do that on the server? do I have to create its own certificate?
- that's another issue maybe for another post, but for now I just need this user to connect from home.

OH.. when I've tried remotely troubleshooting his laptop while at home, everytime I try to connect to the VPN, I get booted from my RDP connection, and cannot reconnect. maybe this is related.

Thanks again!!!