WINS and 2003 Server

I turned on the WINS service in 2003 so I could get browsing to work for an
off-site VPN'd Win2k client. I'm having two issues:

The server's own name isn't known to the client. I can map shares using its
IP address, though, so it's strictly a name issue. I can view shares on a
workstation at the office so the name of that workstation is getting
registered. Do I need to reboot the server to get it to register its own
name?

I can't browse the network for server names. I can only see other machines
on the home LAN. The workgroup name is set the same at home and at the
office. Is there any way to get the office network to show up in Explorer?
Or must I manually type in host names in the Map Drive dialog?

(Not really relevant to the problem, but the VPN is
http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/. The client appears on a separate subnet
than the office LAN and my Linux gateway routes the packets between them.
So the VPN interface on the client is set to node type 8 (Hybrid, WINS
before broadcast) and I've explicitly set the WINS server on that
interface's properties.)

WINS won't automatically give you browsing. But it should give you name
resolution. Does the remote client get the correct WINS address when it
connects? If it does, you should be able to do things like net view
\\machinename form the remote client, and do net use \\machinename\filename
..

Full browsing of the LAN is unlikely with a workgroup setup. You will
probably find that, when you request a browse list, the client will go
looking for a domain master browser (which will fail). Browsing on a LAN in
a workgroup uses broadcasts, but these don't work across routers or WAN
links.

If you are connecting to the server by VPN, you may also upset the
browsing on the LAN. The server is probably the master browser, and it
becomes multihomed when the remote connects.

"Kenneth Porter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Xns94F79254DC24Cshivawellcom@207.46.248.16...
> I turned on the WINS service in 2003 so I could get browsing to work for
an
> off-site VPN'd Win2k client. I'm having two issues:
>
> The server's own name isn't known to the client. I can map shares using
its
> IP address, though, so it's strictly a name issue. I can view shares on a
> workstation at the office so the name of that workstation is getting
> registered. Do I need to reboot the server to get it to register its own
> name?
>
> I can't browse the network for server names. I can only see other machines
> on the home LAN. The workgroup name is set the same at home and at the
> office. Is there any way to get the office network to show up in Explorer?
> Or must I manually type in host names in the Map Drive dialog?
>
> (Not really relevant to the problem, but the VPN is
> http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/. The client appears on a separate subnet
> than the office LAN and my Linux gateway routes the packets between them.
> So the VPN interface on the client is set to node type 8 (Hybrid, WINS
> before broadcast) and I've explicitly set the WINS server on that
> interface's properties.)