Accept Incoming Network Connections

Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 7

You can use this procedure to enable incoming dial-up or VPN connections to your computer.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To accept incoming network connections

Open the Network Connections folder and view available connections.
Press ALT to display the menu bar, and then on the File menu, click New Incoming Connection. The Allow connections to this computer wizard opens.
In Who may connect to this computer, in User accounts on this computer, review the list of existing user accounts. If the user account you want to use does not exist and you want to create it, click Add someone. In the New User dialog box, type values for User name, Full name, Password, and Confirm password, and then click OK.
In Who may connect to this computer, in User accounts on this computer, if you want to view or modify the properties of an existing user account, click the user account and then click Account Properties. In the account Properties dialog box, review or modify the account, and then click OK.
In Allow connections to this computer, in User accounts on this computer, select the users to whom you want to grant access to your computer. Click Next.
On the How will people connect? page, select one or both of the following options:
- Through the Internet. This allows remote computers that are also attached to the Internet to establish a connection to your computer by using a VPN.
- Through a dial-up modem. Also, select the modem or modems you want to use.

Important

The option Through a dial-up modem is not available unless there is a modem installed in your computer.

    Click **Next**.

In Networking software, select the items that you want to support when allowing this connection. If a protocol has configurable options, you can click Properties to configure the protocol to meet your requirements. For more information, see Configure an Incoming Connection to use TCP/IP.
When you are done configuring the protocols, click Allow access, and when the wizard completes configuration of the specified options, click Close.

You can only have one incoming network configuration at a time. If you use the New Incoming Connection menu to try to create a new one, Windows instead reconfigures your existing incoming connection.
For large numbers of incoming connections on a server that operates as part of a distributed network or as a domain controller, use Routing and Remote Access to create a remote access server.
If your incoming connection and fax service have problems working together (for example, you cannot receive incoming connection calls on a device enabled to receive faxes), the modem might not support adaptive answer. Check your modem documentation to verify that you need to disable Fax Receive for that device to accept incoming connections.