[Animal]

You have two seperate issues here.

The first is the inability of the remote to connect to you behind a NAT router, but you can connect to him. This is a known issue with VPN's and NAT, and a lot seems to depend on the particular router in question. Make sure you have all inbound TCP/IP and IPSEC traffic associated with the VPN forwarded to your PC. An easy way to do this, is have your buddy run a port trace and make a notation of all the open ports, then connect the VPN and have him do another port trace. That will allow you to see what ports the VPN is using. You can use the command line and type in "netstat -a" without the quotes. Then simply telnet into your router, and forward the ports you need to.

The second issue is simple security privilidges that you have set in XP. If you want to set up file sharing you need to set up the username in a group that gives sufficient privilidges to do so, however if he is set up in two groups, the lower settings will always precede. I would advise against giving him admin privilidges.

It's not really advisable to give someone complete and total control of your PC, no matter how much you trust this person. I would set up a specific sharing directory and place any shared files in the one directory, and deny access to the rest of your PC.

[ 06-22-2004, 06:15 PM: Message edited by: Animal ]