fun with VPN

So I started a new job recently, and pretty much the whole office works from home on Fridays. I need to be able to access the files located on the company server in order to actually do any work. To do this from home, the IT guy had me install a VPN client on my MacBook (from Cisco, version 4.9.01). The VPN client says it connects to my company's server, but once the connection is established, I don't know what to do. I would expect an icon or something to pop up on my desktop, or something to show up under Network in the finder, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The IT guy doesn't know much about Macs, and couldn't really help me beyond setting up the VPN client. I know nothing about all this computer networking crap, so I have no clue what to do to get this to actually work. I want my work at home fridays! Anybody have any useful insights that might help me figure this out?

The VPN client only connects (securely) your network to your work network. That's all.

Once you are connected, you can use remote desktop, open your file share on the company server, etc... You'll have to as your resident IT the UNC path to your files. Then from Finder select Go from the menu and Connect to Server. Or Command-K is the shortcut.

From the connect menu, use \\<address>\<share name> as provided by your IT. You may be prompted for your username/password.

Then it will open the folder.

IanCT said:

The VPN client only connects (securely) your network to your work network. That's all.

Click to expand...

OOOOK, that was not made clear at me at all. Thank you. I do have the remote desktop thing set up with my office PC, but that means I'd have to work in Vista, which I'm not too keen on. So it seems opening my file share on the company server is what I'd ideally like to do, and that's what I'm having trouble with.

IanCT said:

You'll have to as your resident IT the UNC path to your files.

Click to expand...

? I feel like this sentence is missing a word or two...?

IanCT said:

From the connect menu, use \\<address>\<share name> as provided by your IT. You may be prompted for your username/password.

Click to expand...

I guess this is the part I need to figure out. Will the address be the same IP address I used when setting up the VPN client? Or the IP address for my office PC? Or something else entirely? I remember actually trying the "Connect to server" thing and it didn't work, but I most likely didn't enter the right thing. I guess I'll go bug IT again and see if we can get it to work!

Thanks for the help!