Novell client 4.90 gives The tree or server cannot be found over vpn connection.

One more thought - are you trying to map the drive using the native Windows Explorer drive mapping or are you using the Novell Client's drive mapping function?

Don't map to a NetWare server using Windows Explorer - always use the Novell Client mapping function if you aren't mapping through a login script.  The Novell Client mapping function will work in conjunction with your NetWare login process, instead of trying to map things out of sequence - i.e. mapping the drive before you even make your VPN connection, much less log into the network.

Dang.  I said "If you did a custom install, uninstall it,"  I meant to say, "if you did NOT do a custom install, but rather took the defaults, uninstall it."

Sorry...

Well, I would put the IP address of a server with a replica in the login screen right away. If login suddenly works, then you've narrowed the problem to, as ShineOn suggests, SLP. If login doesn't work, then SLP may still be an issue, but there's something else wrong as well. Putting the IP address is the login box is the simplest way to narrow the problem scope.

I'll take the position that you will not get this to work with XP home.  I've tried when users brought in their personal notebooks.  Colleges have had huge problems with students bringing personal notebooks to campus and not being able to work with MS networks or Netware.

I have gotten XP home to work, but not well.  Its networking capabilities are intentionally crippled by Microsoft, but they do work to a degree.  It's no fun, because odd things happen or things don't happen as they should.

If Microsoft really cared about how much of a headache they were adding, intentionally or no, for administrators and techs, they would never have released ME or XP Home.

The only way to really "fix" this is to install WIN2000 or XP Pro, in the long run you will spend more time fighting this and it will never work smoothly.  ME is even worse, if possible.

daveM

ME is a piece of garbage.

DoJ:  "We want Microsoft to release different versions of Windows"
BillG:  "We can't fork Windows, it'll be too complicated for us to support and maintain!"

Microsoft:  "Windows XP Pro, Windows XP Home, Windows XP Embedded Edition, Windows XP Media Center, Windows Media Center 2003, Windows Server 2003, Windows Advanced Server 2003, Windows Web Server 2003, Windows Data Center 2003, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Home (yes, there is a Windows 2000 Home), Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows 2000 Data Center..."

And odds are that they'd all run better if Internet Explorer weren't kludged into core modules to tie the products together...

Bill Gates is also on record stating that OS/2 was the most important program ever, that M$ would not add tings like multitasking or threading to Windoze because if they did that, they'd have OS/2; and as stating that "640 K ought to be enough for anyone".

NT is so soundly based on OS/2 that it took 3 or 4 service packs for them to stop displaying OS/2 error messages whenever things went sour in NT 4.  

There's "innovation" for you...

The 640K ought to be enough for anyone statement was also an offshoot of an IBM directive.

Commodore had 64K RAM...

IBM wanted their PC to be "ten times better."  That's what Billy boy gave them with MS-DOS...  640K.

That's where the old 640K limit came from, and why there is that goofy "high memory area"  before you get to the 1M limit, after which everything else is addressable.

The only thing that Redmond ever "innovated" was Microsoft Bob.

And that was SUCH a smashing success!

The irony of the 640K arbitrary limit is that it mixes binary and decimal, which screws up the addressing, which is why there is that 384K gap between the DOS limit and the 1M limit.  So much for the theory that Bill G is a genius.  Like, duh!

Lessee...

The BOUGHT what is now IE from what was then Spyglass Software, giving Spyglass no cash but instead promising a percentage of a sales...then promptly giving the program away for free. Nearly destroyed Spyglass, which had been anticipating a cash windfall from climbing into bed with Bill. Instead they got...well...screwed, and ended up having to re-invent themselves.

They bought FoxPro so they could kill the last viable PC RDBMS of the time (dBase).

The Windoze interface is a Mac rip-off.

The Windoze underpinnings are rehashed VMS - thread-oriented, poor memory protection. With all then LANMAN and legacy DOS garbage bolted on, its about as stable as a house of cards in a hurricane. Watch how W2K "recovers" from a BSOD - it basically rebuilds itself. Process-oriented OSes with a strong memory-protection model, like *NIX, contain the damage rather than trying to repair it after the fact. Mac finally clued into the advantages with OS X, and it looks like Novell is hopping on this bandwagon with NetWare v7.

The only thing Micro$oft has "innovated" is new ways to screw over one's business partners and customers while getting rich.

"Instead they got...well...screwed, and ended up having to re-invent themselves."

And Redmond didn't even have the decency to kiss them afterward...

Hmm, well, back to the regularly schedule program, wjt2003, has your Question been Answered?

Yes, sorry it took so long to get back to this topic. I did get this to work with XP home, in the configuration outlined in the question. ShineOn you were correct to assume I was connecting via an IPSEC tunnel, with no IPX. I think the problem was with the SLP information. I made extensive registry changes (extensive for me anyway 7 HKEY entries) with the help of tech support from work. But once again I did get it working on XP home using novell client 4.90 and well I'm not sure what version of netware we are using. Trying to view the version info under the properties gives "Not Available".  I'm going to award ShineOn the points and thank you for the timely response. I'm new to Expert Exchange so I'm not sure what happens to this thread after I accept an answer, but if anyone needs more info I check back to the tread and provide anyone with more info as to the registry setting. Thanks again.