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Listen to the podcast: Hamachi – a simple VPN. 
Transcript
A common question I get at Ask Leo! is how to connect to disparate networks across the internet. For example a small business owner might want to connect to his workplace from his home network, or on a business trip one might want to connect to a work or home network as well.
Aside from Remote Desktop, which can be a little tricky to get working between local networks across the internet, the answer has always been a VPN, or virtual private network. In fact, VPNs are the solution of choice for most large corporations whose employees need access to the corporate network from remote locations. VPNs are secure, allow for various types of authentication, and when they work ... well, it's just like being there.
The problem is that VPNs can be difficult to setup - especially for novice or non-technical users.
Now I actually have the same scenarios that I've listed above: I travel occasionally, and I also have a my wife's small business several miles away that I would like to connect to more easily and directly.
Enter Hamachi. Hamachi is a very lightweight VPN client that I've been playing with for the last couple of days. It doesn't provide network-to-network connectivity like a traditional VPN might, but rather you choose which clients machines you want on your VPN by running the client software on them.
When connected using the VPN, it's the equivalent of being connected directly on a local area network. Now while name resolution doesn't seem to be in place yet, you can browse the network shares of the remote computer using it's Hamachi assigned IP address, connect via remote desktop if you like, and do pretty much anything you might if the computer were nearby on the same LAN. On-line games, naturally, stress this beta technology the most, and the support forums have many helpful pointers and hints for getting LAN based games to work across the Hamachi VPN.
Hamachi bills itself as a "mediated" - meaning that clients are registered with a Hamachi service so that they can be located and the initial connections established. All data transfer is directly peer-to-peer, secure and private.
Hamachi is in beta, it's free, simple and quick. You'll find it at hamachi.cc.
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I am getting error which says "Failed to automatically determine your web proxy configuration" I tried this in Internet Explorer: Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings. and set it to auto-detect on.
In Hamachi:
1. Preferences > Detailed Configuration > and
2. Using Auto-Detect in IE, set the proxy setting to Disabled
3. Using a proxy, enter the settings from IE in there.
4. A script is used in IE, use the settings your admin has given you for proxy connectivity.
Then also its not working
Posted by: Aditya at June 29, 2008 10:33 AMHi Leo, geat web site.
I tried Hamachi yesterday after reading this page.
Posted by: Anth at July 23, 2008 5:46 PMSet up was easy between my Vista Ultimate machine and my XP Pro laptop, but neither machine is allowed access to my XP Home Edition machine. It asks for a username and password and none of my passwords or names will work.
What's worse is that the XP Home machine can access both the Vista and XP Pro computers without even using a password. This, and the fact that Hamachi needs to be on all the time for the VPN to function remotely, seems scary from a security point of view.
My web browsers will not access the help site as they deem it unsafe.
I suggest you look at a similiar program called AnyPlace Control, which has a full control remote desktop feature. It can also remotely shut down and boot up the remote machine.
It's not free(around $50), but comes with a thirty day trial for five clients.
Keep up the good work Leo.
i want to know if there are anyway to use a VPN without installing a private network adapter?
Posted by: humaghadu sitwakentoch at August 30, 2008 9:51 PMSometimes Hamachi server is restarted. I have to wait for an hour until it connects. Is there any other way to make the speed to connect faster?
Posted by: Kelly at December 20, 2008 1:06 AMI am getting error which says "Failed to automatically determine your web proxy configuration" I tried this in Internet Explorer: Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN Settings. and set it to auto-detect on.
In Hamachi:
1. Preferences > Detailed Configuration > and
2. Using Auto-Detect in IE, set the proxy setting to Disabled
3. Using a proxy, enter the settings from IE in there.
4. A script is used in IE, use the settings your admin has given you for proxy connectivity.
Then also its not working
Posted by: Vishwadeep at January 9, 2009 7:31 AMi now reinstalled hamachi and i have deleted evry hamachi file in system 32.......but now the problem is that the hamachi network adapter is not able aquire ip address....
Posted by: Vishwadeep at January 9, 2009 7:40 AMIt may be a useful tool, but there certainly a lot of troubles while performing the setup. I don't know how other users deal with this task, but i have really had a lot of troubles with this. I've been adviced to use the VPN of Secure Chanel(http://world-secure-channel.com/setup/). Can anyone tell me something about it? I would really need an advice about it.
Posted by: Cristina at February 12, 2009 5:55 AMI've now employed Hamachi as well and ditched the problematic MS VPN solution.
Posted by: velichks at February 20, 2009 1:16 PMThere would be miss dials, I'd have to restart the
"Routing and Remote Access" service sometimes as well as power cycle the modem.
Now I have no issues. Install Hamachi on the client pc's and set their
hosts file up and all is well. The notebook users benefit as well.
Hamachi is intelligent and knows when to use the
Local Area Network to peer when it can.
When remote and there is an internet connect a route is found via the net.[url=http://world-secure-channel.com/why/]vpn[/url]
Hamchi - it just works - it's great!!!
proxy is a new experience and quite neq level of Internet security.
Posted by: Dave at February 23, 2009 10:39 PMThanks Hamatchi works now thanks to your well explained tutorial unlike the other sites i visited :)
Posted by: Jilted at July 28, 2009 8:11 PM