I'm trying to set up a VPN with the VPN server on a linux
computer behind a NAT Firewall/DSL Router, and windows XP
clients also behind NAT Firewalls/DSL Routers.

I'm using the pptpd daemon on linux (poptop) and it works
ok - I can get connections from multiple XP clients.

I'm having two problems really - the first is probably more
linux related but the second is pure XP:-

(1) The connection gets dropped after a while, even after
commenting out the idle line in /etc/ppp/options

(2) I have a problem with routing on the client. By default
the default route gets set to the default gateway on the
VPN. This means that e.g. all internet traffic gets routed
through the VPN, which is clearly crazy in this configuration.
Under Windows XP I can turn this off under the TCP/IP
options ("Advanced", "Use default gateway on remote network").
If I do this though then I can't find or resolve computer
names or IP Addresses on the VPN. Is there any way I can
get a reasonable setup that works for both VPN and Internet
connections on the client without having to somehow set up
the routing table manually myself? It seems to me it would be
a fairly standard situation.

Many thanks,

David