sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking linksys vpn router ---windows XP machine connection Problems

I have a BEFVP41 Linksys VPN router.
I know the routers use IPSEC to connect VPN's

I want to connect my Windows XP machine to it.
Can you setup and configure a windows PPTP VPN to the router?

I have gone through the Configuring IPSec between a windows XP PC and the VPN router.

I have created a security policy but I am lost now,
How do I initiate the connection now? Do I create a PPTP VPN to the IP or WHAT?
I'm lost

There are really two common VPNs: IPSEC and PPTP. PPTP is what is built into Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, etc. IPSec is what is built into most routers. However most routers will pass through the PPTP packets.

To set up a PPTP VPN, the only thing you have to do to the router is 1) make sure it is set up to pass PPTP packets, and 2) set up the IP address of your Windows computer inside your LAN as a virtual server to receive packets on port 1723/tcp.

The rest of the setup takes place on the Windows computers.

If you want to connect from a Windows computer at home to your IPSec office VPN router, you need to use special and generally expensive and hard to configure client software.

If you want more details, search this site for "PPTP".

Linksys has free client software that will let you connect your XP machine directly to the router through IPSec. In my experience it never works reliably and you are better off having a PPTP passthrough on the router like the grim reaper mentioned.

I found the free Linksys IPSec VPN client software for Windows XP and Vista here.