I am working remotely from home using company laptop with MSFT VPN
Client accessing VPN on Windows 2003 Server.  I need to so some
testing on some other machines from here.  However this testing
requires the machines to think they are on the local office network. 
I was thinking I could use Internet Connection Sharing to "share" the
VPN Connection.  I used the laptops wireless connection to connect to
my wireless router for access to internet (over DSL)and then used the
ethernet port on the laptop to connect to a 5 port switch.  The other
two testing machines are connected to the switch.  I have successfully
shared VPN and the testing machines are able to view the server and
network.  BUT ONLY if i use IP addresses.  The names are not
resolving.  So instead of "OfficeServer" I have to type in 192.168.X.X
to access the server.  My testing requires that I be able to resolve
the names.  I feel I am really close but need some expert suggestions
to try to resolve this.

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Clarification of Question by markhomer-ga on 14 May 2005 04:38 PDT

Sorry... my laptop is actually using Win XP Pro, it is connecting to a
Win 2003 server.

I have recently been doing similar "work" myself, more for getting to
my home network from work, but similar, so your question caught my
attention.  However, in all honesty I'm not familiar with 2003, but I
use XP.

Quick fix would probably involve the
WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS. file.  It's resonably forward in
explaining itself.  This, may or may not be appropriate for your
situation.

While doing a search to see if it 2003 had this file, and it seems
many people are having a similar problem, most of which I read are
resolved with the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q311218 (
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311218 )

Well, I hope one of those may help you in your attempts.  If not,
sorry for the inconvenience.  :)

you might want to make sure that you have enabled NetBios over TCP/IP
on the internet connection sharing. if this doesnt work adding the
hosts names to WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC\HOSTS should definitely
work as the prev comment suggests.

--jeff

I had a similar problem when connecting to a work VPN from home to get
emails through Outlook. This was off an exchange server so outlook
needed the name rather than the IP address of the exchange server. I
resolved this by adding the WINS server manually in the TCP/IP
settings of the VPN connection. Could be worth a try. Add the IP
address of your win 2003 server in the WINS tab of the Advanced TCP/IP
settings of the VPN connection. Nothing to loose and might just work,

I do not mean to step on any previous answers however, I want you to
read this post with a clean slate. Please disregard the prior comments
for now.

Firstly, in what manner are you trying to access the servers on your
work network...i.e. Are you trying to access shared files and folders?
Or are you trying to access network services like http(intranet) or
smtp(mail). Reason I ask this is because while these previous posts
are correct to an extent they may not be correct for your immediate
situation. The hosts file that they speak of successfully maps fully
qualified domain names to IP addresses, while another file called the
LMHOSTS file, successfully maps netbios names to IP addresses. The
LMHOSTS file is what needs to be properly filled out, in order to
access file and printer sharing services. As with the HOSTS file it's
documentation (just open the file to see) does a good job of teaching
the format and the information you need to provide. By default these
files have an extension, in order for them to be used correctly, once
you've filled in the appropriate information, make a copy of the file
in the same folder and rename the copy to be simply HOSTS or LMHOSTS
respectively(without the extension). Depending on your network and the
operating systems present you may be able to use only the HOSTS file
even for file sharing, IF: you provide the fully qualified domain name
of the server you are trying to connect to.. i.e... your company
domain name is somecomp.com, and the computer name you wish to connect
to is named thisPuter, the fully qualified domain name for that
machine would be  thisPuter.somecomp.com. In the address bar of your
explorer window or even an internet explorer window you would type 
\\thisPuter.somecomp.com\sharename where sharename is the name of the
share you wish to access.

Thirdly, and yet the most simple, would be to provide the DNS server
IP address for your WORK network statically in your IP settings on the
computers you are using to access the work network from, thus
bypassing the need to use either the HOST or LMHOST files.

If this raises any questions or you are confused about any of the
information I've mentioned in here, or just don't know or understand
how to do some of the stuff I've mentioned, post a request for
clarification stating specifically what you are confused about and I
will be happy to oblige. Also, post some additional information - the
OS of the servers that you are trying to access on your work network
and the OS of the machines you are using in your home network.

Needing to correct myself real quick, depending on the OS's present in
your network, using the DNS solution as mentioned above may only
prevent the need of creating the HOSTS file, you may still be required
to use the LMHOSTS. I've already written a book, so for more info,
please be specific, and provide the requested information.

You can't share a VPN with XP ICS, as the documentation clearly states
and as numerous other sites have commented.