VPN in a mixed NT4.0 and Windows 2003 enviroment

Hi,
We have a Maryland office that has Windows 2003 with
Active Directory and a London office that has NT4.0
Server which is a PDC. We are looking at connecting both
offices with a VPN. The London office plans to access
data in Maryland by drive mappings. Would there be any
problem or issue that would come up with connectivity or
anything else since we have Windows2003 and London has
NT4.0? Thanks.

Max

Because of the mis-match OS versions, I'd say use some type of hardware
device to create the VPN. There are quite a bit of differences between the
RRAS in NT40 and the RRAS in 2000/2003, and I don't know how well they work
together in a "Site-to-Site VPN" configuration. A Site-to-Site VPN
configuration is a lot more complex than a Remote Access VPN.

Once the VPN is created you will only have the connection,..that's all,
nothing else. Machine naming & Net'Hood browsing and Network Authentication
are *not* provided for by VPN. You have to make provision for them on your
own via WINS, "Netbios Over TCP/IP, etc. You will then need a Trust
established between the Domains which will never happen unless you have a
*perfectly* and *solidly* functioning WINS setup between the two systems.

Do *not* use mapped drives. Use the normal "network path" to the resource.
You can simplify it with "shortcuts", ...that is no different than a website
"shortcut" or "browser favorite". The reason for this is that if the VPN
link fails or has moments of poor performance (and it *will*), then the
users will screem bloody murder everytime they try to open or save *any*
file or do anything where Windows Exlorer or a Browse window must be opened.
In these situations Windows Explorer will expect to scan those mapped drives
just like any other drive on the machine to produce the "file listing" of
the drive. Since the drives won't be available (or very slow) it will take
*forever* every time the user performs an action such as saving, opening, or
browsing to files even if it is just on the *C:* drive. This will also cause
the machine to take forever to boot up if the VPN is having problems because
those mapped drives are estabilished at boot up.

People need to get off the "mapped drive kick" anyway. The concept of mapped
drives goes back to the old DOS days and legacy Novell systems. The old DOS
Clients used mapped drive because the was the only decent way to use a
remote resource. There is no excuse for mapped drives in a modern OS. What
are you supposed to do once you hit letter "Z" and you still have more
resources to access?

--

Phillip Windell [MCP, MVP, CCNA]
www.wandtv.com


"max" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:102f801c43f33$a6298f40$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
> We have a Maryland office that has Windows 2003 with
> Active Directory and a London office that has NT4.0
> Server which is a PDC. We are looking at connecting both
> offices with a VPN. The London office plans to access
> data in Maryland by drive mappings. Would there be any
> problem or issue that would come up with connectivity or
> anything else since we have Windows2003 and London has
> NT4.0? Thanks.
>
> Max

I agree with Phillip's reply. Get two firewall/routers that can handle VPN -
I like Sonicwalls. Set them up with a site link VPN and you're good to go.
You do need to handle name resolution somehow - depending on office size,
you might want to simply enable NetBIOS broadcast over that VPN link
(configurable in the Sonicwall VPN config) given the disparate
networks/versions....

I have no truck with drive mappings, though. I don't create lots of shares &
map them all to letters....

max wrote:
> Hi,
> We have a Maryland office that has Windows 2003 with
> Active Directory and a London office that has NT4.0
> Server which is a PDC. We are looking at connecting both
> offices with a VPN. The London office plans to access
> data in Maryland by drive mappings. Would there be any
> problem or issue that would come up with connectivity or
> anything else since we have Windows2003 and London has
> NT4.0? Thanks.
>
> Max