Hi, my dad brought his laptop (OS=XP-Pro) home so he could do some work at the house through a vpn up at the office. We got it to work about a month ago, but since then we've not been able to. The IT guy suggest we try to plug right into the cable modem and not through the router that has a firewall in it. I got my dad to tell him that we had done it through the router with no problems before but he would like us to try it anyway.

New problem though, no matter what we do we can't get the internet settings correct for his laptop. I tried ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew. I tried going into Network Connections and hitting repair. I also tried unplugging the cable modem from the wall to see if it was just holding on to some old settings or something. I also tried rebooting multiple times. Nothing worked. However, when I tried the same thing on the computer in my room and my sisters room, I was able to get on the net after just doing a simple ipconfig /release ipconfig /renew.

What could be the problem, why is this laptop being so stubborn? What else can I try? Is it possible the IT guy has put some settings voodoo on this laptop in the registry or something? I don't get it!

Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks in advance.