Windows VPN not working properly

[antoainb]

So here's what I want to do: I want to have my desktop (running Windows 8.1) to act as a PPTP VPN server so I can access a network share (that's also being shared from the same computer) from outside the network. Sounds simple right? PPTP is built into Windows and everything. It should be dead easy. Set it up like every single guide online says. Forward port 1723. Connect to the VPN. Presto! Network shares available.

 

Yeah, no.

Configure it like everyone says - check

Forward port 1723 - check

See if port is working - check

Connect to the VPN - check

Network shares available - ?

 

Here's what's happening. I can connect to the VPN no problem and on my client my IP changes to my home network's IP, which indicates it's connecting properly, but I can't ping the VPN server, i.e. my desktop. I can ping other computers on the network just fine, and they can ping the client that's outside LAN, even the server can ping the VPN client, but I can't ping the server/access shared folders or files.

 

I can't seem to be able to figure it out. It connects, but it can't ping the server, which seems really weird to me. If it is of any help when I go on the server and see the properties of the client (which does appear in network connections) it says that there is no connection through IPv4 and that 0 packets have been sent, even though I browsed for a while on the client, with the VPN on.

 

Any help is extremely valuable to me.

Thanks in advance!

[Counter-Strike Player]

My suggestion is you shouldn't be using the built-in PPTP stuff, as it has security implications, and don't take my word that either. Also, asking for a network share outside the network is going to take some trickery on the client-side and convincing Windows an inbound connection is on the same domain, as Windows occasionally does a security update that hardens security that has to do with domain-level authentication. Filezilla or a simple FTP server is probably going to be less of a headache for you.

[antoainb]

My suggestion is you shouldn't be using the built-in PPTP stuff, as it has security implications, and don't take my word that either. Also, asking for a network share outside the network is going to take some trickery on the client-side and convincing Windows an inbound connection is on the same domain, as Windows occasionally does a security update that hardens security that has to do with domain-level authentication. Filezilla or a simple FTP server is probably going to be less of a headache for you.

 

I know PPTP is far from being the safest thing but it doesn't require any extra software to be installed to work on Windows machines, which for me is a definite plus, so that's why I went with it. The thing is, I can make it work using another server. I can see shares on other devices, just not on the device hosting the VPN server. It's not only a problem with that computer either. I have tried using other Windows computers (also running 8.1) and I can access all the shares except for those that are from the VPN server machine.

Also, FTP would be far easier but I don't want to have to download the files to my computer, I want to be able to stream stuff for example, which FTP can't do, at least AFAIK.