For some time I have had a VPN connection to my office which I use to transfer Revit files from work so I can work on them at home, or open a local copy of a workshared Central file. I have our main shared project drive mapped as the Z:\ drive on my home PC, which is the same way we have it at work. Sometimes I also use RDP to my office workstation if I'm working on larger files that my home PC by itself can't handle.
This week, however, I noticed that when the VPN is connected, it seems I'm accessing everything outside of home (internet, RDP, etc) through the actual office ISP. I'm sure that's how it's always been, but I've just never noticed it before.
For instance I have Comcast cable internet at home. When I go to Speedtest.net it shows my ISP and current IP, and I get speeds of around 14+ Mbps down and 2 to 3 Mbps up. When VPN is active, though, Speedtest.net shows my ISP as Comcast Business Class and shows our office network's main IP address. But here's the kicker: I can BARELY manage to get 0.95 Mbps down and 0.25 Mbps up... i.e. 125 KBps down and a ridiculous 32 KBps up.
For some reason I haven't noticed this issue before this week, but now when I try to use RDP to work on larger files on my *much* more powerful office workstation, the RDP interface keeps freezing and dropping the connection every 10-15 minutes for sometimes upwards of 5+ minutes at a time. It's extremely frustrating.
What I need is a way to connect directly to my office workstation instead of going through VPN. Is there any way I can connect to RDP using our office network IP address without having to have the VPN connection active?
I'm reading up on Terminal Services Gateway as a way to connect to my office workstation without VPN, but it appears that's only on Windows Server 2008. Our office is running 2003. Is there anything comparable to TS Gateway on Server 2003, or some other way I can connect remotely to my office workstation (domain computer)?