VPN from a Remote Desktop Session

Question

Here's what I'd like to do: I have a multi-monitor workstation (Vista) at home. I also have a work laptop (XP) with Cisco VPN client 4.8.01.0300. I want to interact with the work laptop as a window as opposed to just giving it a whole monitor (and keyboard and mouse of its own).

I'd like to remote-desktop into the laptop and then connect the VPN to work, but of course when I connect the VPN the remote desktop session gets closed.

How can I make this work? Note the home workstation cannot connect to work over the VPN. It can only be the laptop so that is not an option.

Answer 1

So your problem to solve is how to enable LAN access while the VPN is up on your Laptop.

You have to allow this on the server side (VPN server/concentrator.). There is an "allow local LAN access" option (split tunneling) you have to enable. This setting overwrites the VPN client setting.

There is a related (closed) question on Stack Overflow. The answer mentions an alternative VPN client in case your sysadmin doesn't want to enable split tunneling.