How to connect to your workplace safely using Vista VPN connection

We did our instructions on a Windows Vista Business edition machine, but they are largely the same for any other flavor of Windows Vista such as Windows Vista Home or Ultimate. The requirement is that you do need to be logged in as a user with administrative privileges to configure the connection. You only have to configure your VPN connection once and depending on the choices you make during installation, it can be available to all the other users on your machine.

Step1:

- Click on the Start Button and then choose Control Panel

Step 2:

- From the control panel choose Network and Internet, if your default view for control panel is set to classic view, see step 2B else go to Step 3

Step 2B:

- This is the same as previous step, the screen capture shows to click Network and Sharing Center

Step 3:

- Click on "Connect to a Network". If you are using the classic view for your Control Panel, see step 3B else proceed to Step 4

Step 3B:

- This is the same as previous step, if you are using classic view for the control panel, click on the left hand column.

Step 4:

- Click on "Set up a Connection or network"

Step 5:

- Click on "Connect to a Workplace"

Step 6:

- On How do you want to connect prompt, choose "Use my Internet Connection (VPN)"

Step 7:
- Provide the IP address of your Work VPN server (the one you got from your network administrator)
- Provide a descriptive name for this connection such as "My Work VPN"
- If you want other users on your machine to connect to this VPN as well, choose "Allow other people to use this connection

Step 8:

- Provide your username and password, we recommend not saving your password if this is a shared machine

Step 9:

- If all goes well, you will get a confirmation saying "Successfully Connected" click close

Step 10:

- To close the VPN connection, simply look on your task bar (next to the system clock), and click on a computer looking icon, then choose "Disconnect From -> MyWorkVPN"