Russell McMahon wrote:

> I'd like (wouldn't we all) to transparently join two or more networks
> across the internet as a VPN (Virtual Private Network) preferably (of
> course) for free and ideally without venturing too far away from
> Microsoft land, [...] 
> 
> Any suggestions? 

I use an SMC Barricade router for this for some time (SMC7004FW). Works
without a problem. There are other brands and models, too. Documentation of
these devices is often lacking, so some experimenting regarding the
settings may be required :)

Unless you want to set up a Linux or Windows server as router, gateway,
firewall and VPN server (replacing your hardware router/gateway/firewall),
using a router with built-in VPN server is IMO the only practical way,
since I don't think most normal router/gateway devices would support a VPN
server behind them. (This probably depends a lot on the specific router and
VPN implementation; but I think you would have to know a lot about both to
be sure.)

Note that no matter what exact setup you use, don't expect it to work like
a LAN connection (even though it logically looks like a LAN connection).
Many programs apparently use a high number of serialized small requests and
are not well-threaded, which means that they may slow down to a crawl even
with a decent connection speed, due to the often much higher latency.
Microsoft Explorer is one such program. Use the command line (or FTP) for
remote file management over VPN... Also some client-server systems are
designed for LAN use. Extending their use to a WAN using VPN may or may not
work (well or at all), due to the same issue. 

Gerhard

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