1

I have a Windows 7 laptop that connects to a network with a VPN.

As soon as the laptop connects to the VPN, it becomes unreachable by its physical IP address.
The instant it disconnects, it becomes reachable again.

In other words, if I ping the laptop forever (by IP address) from a different machine in its physical network, it will reply.
The instant I connect the laptop to the VPN, it stops replying.
The instant I disconnect the laptop from the VPN, it starts replying again.

This is not a name resolution issue.

Why is this happening?
Is there a workaround?

EDIT: I believe that Windows 7's Virtual WiFi (which the laptop supports) might help here, but I haven't found any documentation.

Improve this question
1
  • Does anyone have a better title?
    – SLaks
    Commented Feb 2, 2010 at 22:30

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

The reason for this is quite complicated. Your machine is still on the physical network, but a good VPN client does several things including Encryption/IPSec and Firewall.

It all comes down to policy and settings on the client, but most of them route all network traffic over the vpn link (Bridging your network and the remote one) and act as a firewall blocking everything locally.

Improve this answer
3
  • Is there a workaround? I own and run the server.
    – SLaks
    Commented Feb 4, 2010 at 15:53
  • If you can't configure it, use a different VPN program that supports it - there isn't really a good answer, sorry.
    – William Hilsum
    Commented Feb 4, 2010 at 16:08
  • I'm using Windows 7's built-in VPN client.
    – SLaks
    Commented Feb 4, 2010 at 16:16

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .