Network browsing remotely over VPN?

[Guest mlimbert]

Hi there

Is it possible to use a Pocket PC device to connect to a corporate environment via VPN over GPRS, and then browse network shares?

The aim is to allow users to connect in and transfer files from the network for them to work on on their PPC. I know the preferred and currently functioning solution is to dock in the office, and use AS to transfer the files before 'going remote', but is it possible to get files whilst remote?

Many thanks. I have looked at the Network Browser software from vmobilesoftware but it seem to be that it browses the network via a desktop PC. Not really what I am after.

[Guest fraser]

Yes, you can do this however I found one MAJOR limitation that makes it next to useless for me. It seems that all of the file browsers out there only seem to work on the local subnet. I run two at home and while I could browse other resources on the WiFi subnet, the wired one was not having any of it. I even tried my laptop both on WiFi and wired and it still stood up; I could browse only via the WiFi IP address. All other routing works, e.g. accessing a webserver on the wired network from the pda works and always has done. Just SMB file sharing has issues and I tried every app available at the time (6 months ago approx). All were commerical apps BTW. Oh, and the laptop has no similar issues, it can access everything on either connection, so it's not my network.

So, if the resources are on the same subnet as is given to the phones VPN client, it ought to work.

Do you require to upload the data after editing the files? If not, a webserver might meet your needs and be a lot more user friendly. Browsing a windows share over a sub 56k link isn't pretty, trust me, been there, bought the t-shirt. Even over a broadband VPN link, accessing network shares in my work network (same area, same ISP) is painful.

[Guest yves]

you have to add windows-networking and maybe NetBios support to your incoming-vpn-connection in order to get smb-sharing work