Ready for the Road: Taking a Windows XP Laptop on a Business Trip
Published: August 6, 2001
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Using a laptop loaded with Windows XP is a surprisingly pleasant experience for someone like me who has spent lots of time working and supporting other mobile users with Windows NT. For example, to prepare for a business trip to Oregon this week, I devoted some time to getting my laptop ready for the road. It took only a few minutes, which is very different from my experiences of only a year or two ago.
I had three basic tasks to accomplish before the laptop would be ready to travel:
| • | Set up a dial-up Internet connection |
| • | Set up a VPN connection to the office |
| • | Make files available offline, so I could work even when I wasn't connected to the office network. |
The whole process, including testing everything, took less than an hour.
Setting up a Dial-up Internet Connection
For travel, I use a CompuServe account for my Internet connection, since they have POPs (Points of Presence) just about everywhere, and an 800 number for when they don't. Setting up a connection was easy:
1. | Open the Network Connections folder by clicking Start, pointing to Connect To, and then clicking Show all connections. |
2. | Under Network Tasks, click Create a new connection to open the New Connection Wizard. |
3. | Click Next, click Connect to the Internet, and click Next again. |
4. | Here, as shown in Figure 1, you can select from a list of Internet service providers that are built in, use the CD that your ISP gave you, or do what I did and manually configure the pieces. If you used a CD from your ISP, or selected from the built-in list, your steps diverge at this point. Click Next. 
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5. | Click to select the type of Internet connection you're using, in this example, a dial-up modem is used, and click Next. |
6. | Type the name of your ISP, which becomes the name of your connection, click Next again, and type in the phone number for your ISP. I chose to use an 800 number for CompuServe, because hotel phone charges have gotten to be a pain lately. Click Next again. |
7. | Decide whether you want this connection to be available only for yourself, or for anyone else who uses the computer. Unless you're really sure everything is secure, and you know you need to share the computer, I'd stick with just making it available for yourself. Click Next again. |
8. | Now, type in your Internet Account Information, as shown in Figure 2. You'll probably want to clear the Make this the default Internet connection check box if you're only on the road occasionally, and usually connect to a local area network to get to the Internet. 
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9. | Click Next, and then Finish, and you're done. |
The Connection dialog box opens automatically when you finish, ready to connect to the Internet. (If you're using CompuServe, you'll need to complete one more step, because you need to use a script to sign in. Select Properties and then click the Security tab, and click the Run script check box. Choose the cis.scp script and you should be fine.)
If you want to place a shortcut to this connection on your nice, clean, desktop, you can do that, but the default is to leave the desktop clean.
Creating a VPN Connection to Your Work Network
OK, you're on the Internet now, and it took about 10 minutes, including the time to find the phone cord in your briefcase and plug it in to the hotel room phone. If all you need to do is read email, and you can do that without connecting internally to your company network, you're done. But if, like many of us, you need to connect to the private network at the office before you can read your email or get much done, you'll need to set up a VPN connection to that network. Depending on how your IT department has configured things, this can be simple or a pain, but if you're using Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 and Remote Routing and Access Services (RRAS), as we are, it's really pretty simple. To set up a VPN connection:
1. | Open the New Connection Wizard again. Click Connect to the network at my workplace, and click Next. |
2. | Click Virtual Private Network connection, and click Next. |
3. | Enter a name for this connection, and then click Next. |
4. | Choose whether to have Windows automatically dial the initial connection to the Internet you created in the previous steps, or let you do that manually. If you use multiple connections to the Internet, stick to manual, but if you always use the same connection, let Windows XP do it for you the easy way, as shown in Figure 3. 
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5. | Click Next, and then type in the host name or IP address of your RRAS server. If you don't know what this should be, check with your IT department. Click Next again, and select My use only for this connection. You really shouldn't share VPN connections! Click Next again and then Finish to create the VPN connection. |
That's really all there is to it. Now when I click the VPN connection, it automatically connects me to the Internet, then connects into my work network. I can work just as if I were in the office, albeit a bit slower.
Offline Files
Connecting to your work network is nice, but when you're on the road and hampered by a slow Internet connection, you often want to work on documents without connecting to the network. The Offline Files feature in Windows XP makes accessing shared network files while working offline a simple and transparent process.
First, set up your computer to use offline files:
1. | Open My Computer. |
2. | Click Tools, and then click Folder Options. |
3. | On the Offline Files tab, click the Enable Offline Files check box to select it. |
4. | Click Synchronize all offline files before logging off for full synchronization, which gives you the most current version of any shared network file you work with offline. Leave it unselected to effect a quick synchronization, which gives you a complete, but not necessarily most current, version of the offline files. |
The next step is to designate the network files or directories you want to make available offline. The Offline Files Wizard sets up an Offline Files folder for you and copies versions of the files to your laptop hard disk. When you work on one of the files offline, it will be synchronized automatically with the original when you reconnect to the network. To set up offline files for the first time:
1. | Right-click the shared network folder or file you want to make available offline, and then click Make Available Offline. |
2. | When the Offline Files Wizard opens, answer the questions to create an offline folder on your computer, set up automatic synchronization, and create a shortcut on your desktop to the folder. |
3. | After you've done the original setup of offline files, right-click any additional files or folders you want to make available when you're on the road, click Make Available Offline, and the files or folders will get automatically added to your Offline Files folder. |
Now, whether you're in the office or on the road doesn't really matter–you're working with the exact same file either way. Next time you connect to the network, the network files are synchronized with your offline files. If someone else in the office has been working on the same shared document, you can choose to keep your version, keep the one on the network, or keep both.
Down the Road
Now that I've got everything set up on the new laptop, I'm ready for that business trip. Next time we'll see just how well everything went while we were on the road.
