Question : Problem: Unable to RDP to remote pc when using wireless VPN

Perhaps someone here can help me with this one.

I am using a Sprint PC-5740 wireless broadband card to connect to my LAN at work through VPN. Once connected through VPN I need to connect to a specific user WXP pc through remote desktop.

Here is the problem:

Once connected through VPN I am only able to connect to the necessary pc using RDP if I use the IP address of the pc.
If I try to RDP to the pc using the pc name I get a message that the "pc cannot be contacted".

I WAS able to connect to the pc using the pc name the very first time I tried over RDP but after that it failed every time. I finally reloaded the PCS Connection Manager software and was again able to connect over wireless VPN using RDP the first time I tried to connect. Once I dis-connected the RDP session however, it would not work again and the message "pc cannot be contacted" appeared.

I am able to connect to my own pc using the RDP connection with both the pc name and IP address as many times as I want without problems.

Wired LAN, Non-VPN RDP connections are possible to any of the pcs.

All of the pcs have WXP and none of them are assigned static IP addresses.

If anyone has some ideas or suggestions it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer : Problem: Unable to RDP to remote pc when using wireless VPN

mainsg, the problem is  NetBIOS names are broadcast over a VPN. Depending on your network configuration such as the presence of a WINS server it may not be possible. The most common solution to this is to use the IP address, or make use of the LMHosts file. The LMHosts file can be used to create a table of IP's and NetBIOS names, so that when your computer tries to resolve a name it will check the local name cache, which may be how you connected the first time, and next the LMHosts file. The computer you are connecting to needs to have a static/fixed IP address. The file is located:
  %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\LMHosts.sam
If you have not used the file before it will have a .sam (sample) extension. It contains instructions. Open it with notepad. Any line preceded with a '#' is a comment line. Add the IP of the computer you are connecting to,  followed by a space or tab and then the computer name. Hit enter (important) and save without any extension. When saving good idea to enclose with quotes so no .txt extension is added by notepad.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/cnet/cnfd_lmh_QXQQ.asp

Hopefully this is a solution you can live with.