I’m sorry if this isn’t the right place to post this and I will likely post this to a networking sub as well.
I have a Windows 11 Pro PC and a Surface 7 tab. I do some photography based stuff and scan all my negatives into my main PC. I can access the files from my tablet, obviously, when I’m home and on the same network so I can work on my files from the tablet if I want versus the PC.
If I am out somewhere and want to work on them using either my mobile hot spot or if at at another location with private WiFi and want to be able to access the files on my PC, is there an easy way to go about this without needing a VPN capable router?
When I bought my Velop Mesh system I didn’t know this VPN Server functionality was a router thing, and years ago had setup a PPTP connection in Windows Networking to access my computer remotely from an only Surface RT. I was even able to use Remote Desktop with it. I tried the same thing with my current setup and while the VPN tunnel works when I’m on the same network without issue, I cant access it when I’m using my hotspot or a remote network.
I really can’t afford to go buy more hardware, or pay for a VPN subscription right now, and I tried using SoftEther VPN server and couldn’t figure out how to get that to work either.
My Velop system supports pass through for different types of VPN connections, but doesn’t support Open VPN or anything like that natively.
I’ve looked through Google and can’t really find anything, except for info about setting up the “Incoming Connection” in Windows and I saw somewhere in another sub that it’s possible my ISP has blocked PPTP connections. This would explain why it worked before but not now.
Any info would be appreciated. If this isn’t the right place for this question, my apologies and I can remote my post.
Thank you!
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Tailscale is what you want. Dead simple to set up. Install on both devices and login. Use the Tailscale address (starts with 100.) to connect. You might also like NoMachine better for remote access, while I’m here recommending stuff.
ZeroTier One + Rustdesk. All free.
Thank you very much for the info. I have their site up and I’ll check out NoMachine as well. I don’t exactly need RDP functionality because I have the software already so as long as I can access my PC’s shared files, I’m golden but I’ll look at that.
Thanks!!
I should mention that a VPN subscription would not help in your case: what you’re looking for is the original meaning of ‘VPN’: remotely accessing a network. Most ‘VPNs’ (like NordVPN) nowadays are actually proxies meant to anonymize the origin of traffic. Somehow the terminology got mixed up somewhere along the line.
That’s what I figured, honestly. Seeing what the use-case is for these kinds of services, I knew it was a shot in the dark to post to the VPN sub. I actually deleted my post there because I figure that they are more geared towards streaming and ad-blocking, plus I got a response here much quicker.
Like you mentioned, though, since that’s the original meaning of “VPN” I don’t know what else to really call it. That’s what everything tells me I need when I Google it. Then brings up those services, which only discuss masking location. I’ve been looking into this for a month or two. 
