So I am trying to connect to the VPN in vista, but I can't seem to get through. It says that it connects just fine, but it just sits there and spins when it tries to authenticate my user name and password. Has anyone else seen this problem?

I haven't tried VPN in Vista. Have you tried putting MST-USERS\userid? If that's all you've tried, have you tried it without?

I only ever enter my username (not MST-USERS\) and it works fine. Vista was actually the easiest of all OSes to set up VPN.

EDIT: have you registered your MAC addy since the name change? If not, try doing that first and then see if it authenticates you.

MAC address does not need to be registered to use VPN

So far I gave tried with and without MST-USERS\, and no luck. This used to work with the UMR server, and all I did was change the address from vpn.umr.edu to vpn.mst.edu at first (it's been a while since I needed the VPN). When that didn't work, I deleted the connection and started a new one following the instructions from for XP that are on the helpdesk website as best I could.

Could it be because of NAT issues on my family's wireless router or anything else like that?

Check your vista firewall I vaguely remember having to unblock something. Optionally check PeerGuardian if you have it and make sure you aren't blocking the .edu list, or make sure you allow mst.edu.

If you're going through a router, it might need to support pptp (might have missed a p or something in there). I'm not sure on this.

I'm pretty sure it was something in the wireless router I was connected to, because I can connect to the neighbors' wireless, and it connects just fine with the same setting. Something about NAT and the specific type of netgear router. A Netgear WGT624 to be precise. Apparently a lot of people have had VPN problems with this thing. Thanks for all the suggestions, but I've got it working for now.

that or is anyone else connected via VPN on your network?

But ya netgear sucks