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Cannot browse network neighborhood

Hi, I am a dentist with 3 offices, each office has a workgroup. My need is to connect from my house to the one XP Pro server/workstation in each office and check appointments and other apps. like quickbooks, no editing or updating just accessing the files and perhaps printing locally the information that was accessed. I have created a tunnel with two Dlink DI-824VUP vpn routers. I started with just two routers, created the tunnel, enabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP in the local and remote server/workstation and also enabled broadcast NetBIOS in the router. Disabled XP firewall, no NetBEUI installed. My local computer belongs to the same network name which is called MBN1. Yet I cannot see the neighborhood, I can definitely ping the remote computers but no success in viewing the remote network. Is there something I am not doing or doing worng?
Thanks

Cuzurro

gjohnson99

first thing to do connect by the e ip address of the host.

If that dose not work your VPN is not working right.

Cuzurro

ASKER

I don't quite understand what you mean by not working right. I get the confirmation message that my tunnel has been created and that the connecion has been established. I can ping the host no problems. I am not an expert, do you mean connect to the Host by adding a network place with the host ip address or mapping its drive?

gjohnson99

Yes replace the host name with the ip address

Cuzurro

ASKER

Thx, I already did that, no success.

gjohnson99

can ping you the server from the client with vpn up ?

Cuzurro

ASKER

Both ways, from the server to the client and viceversa, both reply.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Tim Holman

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hutzul

Its also possible, and will be easier than updating an lmhosts file every time a machine is changed/added/removed by adding the following line in your lmhosts file
INCLUDE \\192.168.1.1\public\lmhosts which is a IP UNC pointer to a share location with a current, active copy of the lmhosts file.
However, running quickbooks by using a VPN client remotely and a shared file could very possibly by tediously slow considering QB's method of operation. I would suggest perhaps running QB on the XP pro machine by using RDP (remote desktop). I am pretty sure your local printer will pop up as a Terminal Services printer port on the remote XP machine that you could use at your local remote location (considering the drivers for the printer are installed on the local computer at the remote location.
In the end, you probably won't need to use the network neighbourhood very often. So, a distributed LMHOSTS file would be a good plan, host to IP resolution will work well.

For starters, what happens on your remote PC running the VPN client when you try this at the command prompt?

nbtstat -a 192.168.1.1 (or whatever IP address belongs to the machine in the office) if this returns a bunch of stuff regarding workgroup etcc... then you should be fine to map drives and do all sorts of netbios stuff.

If this works, try the following..

net view \\192.168.1.1(or whatever IP address belongs to the machine in the office)

if this shows a list of shares, then you're going ahead. If it gives you "access denied" then you might need to authenticate to the box:

ie:

net view \\192.168.1.1 /user:(username on remote machine)
then you'll be asked for a password...enter it as it is for that user on the remote machine

then try

net use x: \\192.168.1.1\public /user:(username on remote machine)

If the share is setup for auth then it is likely you wont see anything if you havnt set a security token preoperly.