vpn connection established, but can' t view shares

[#1]

Good day all, We' re trying to connect a remote office to the main office to view file shares and run a piece of software at the remote office using the database at the main office. Nothing complex... at least that I can see. The main office has a Fortigate appliance. The remote office has the Forticlient app installed. The remote office comptuer can connect to the vpn. It can ping the IP of the " server" computer in the main office once connected. The remote computer cannot " see" the file shares on the main office " server" computer however. I' m trying to access them by opening the " server" computer' s IP\shared folder name (i.e. \\192.168.1.108\shared). Am I doing that correctly? The shared folder in the main office is shared across that local network with 9 workstations, so file sharing is set up and working and being accessed properly there... What am I doing wrong? Oh, and here' s the kicker... Charter Internet has control of the Fortigate. I do not have access to the configuration of the appliance at all. They have assured me that the Fortigate is set up properly (however, it wasn' t to start with, because initially the remote office computer didn' t have access to the internet when the vpn was connected, until they rebuilt the vpl file). Any help for me? I' ve got to get these two offices connected, like last week! Regards,

[#2]

it seems that there is something related with server security, just try to access the sharefolder via cli and also double check the firewall policy for the vpn connection that is not blocking any fileshare traffic.

[#3]

OK, forgive me for my ignorance.... " access the sharefolder via cli" ? can you explain a bit further? I can ping the " server machine' s" IP address from command line. How would I see if I can access the shares via command line specifically? There are no firewalls blocking anything on the server machine, and file share permissions have been set at least temporarily to allow everyone access, so we can rule out a file permissions issue. Unfortunately I don' t have access to the configuration of the fortigate, since the ISP won' t allow me access. I have to take their word for it that it' s " configured properly" . Thanks for the reply!

[#4]

when I attempt from command line..

net use y: \\IP.Address.of.server\shared folder

I get system error 58 has occurred, the specified server cannot perform the requested operation.

[#5]

Well, I' m not sure if it was disabling security software or changing the " simple file sharing" or something else I might have done, but while I was getting the system error 58, I on a whim decided to try to map the network drive from windows explorer. Low and behold, the drive mapping worked!!! what the.... I did uninstall antiviruses on server machine and on remote machine to test... along with turn off and on the simple file sharing (from notes I found when researching system error 58...) so I' m not sure exactly what happened to allow it to work. I' ll be re-installing AV now to see if anything changes. Thanks again.