vista remote desktop vpn complications

[ryanj247]

i have two pc's connected to a broadband router. i use remote desktop from A to connect to B. on B, i've set up a vpn connection to a personal VPN service. i chose "public location" when i first connected to the vpn network, because i want the most secure environment possible on that PC when i'm connected to the vpn. i also unchecked everything other than "Internet Protocol Version 4" in the properties of the vpn connection, as per their security instructions. but when i connect to the vpn on B, the remote desktop connection is lost. i can reconnect the remote desktop, but only after several minutes; immediate attempts to reconnect fail.

when i log in to B directly during the time that i am unable to connect via remote desktop, i can see some peculiar things happening. immediately after the vpn connection is made, two networks are listed in "Network and Sharing Center". The local area connection shows as a private network, and the vpn connection shows as public. after several minutes, the vpn connection disappears, and the local area connection is the only network showing (it shows as a private network). once this happens, i can go ahead and connect from A again via remote desktop. note that even though the vpn connection disappears from "Network and Sharing Center", it still shows as "connected" when i go to "Manage Network connections", and all internet traffic still goes through the vpn.

although everything eventually works the way i want it to, it's annoying that remote desktop is disconnected when i connect to the vpn and then is unable to reconnect for several minutes. is there anything i can do to keep this from happening?