How do I set up a working VPN connection in Vista?

How do I set up a working VPN connection in Vista?

I was able to set up one connection under a local account, connected it, set
my Vista machine to connect to my domain at work, and joined the domain. I
then used fast user switching to keep the VPN active and logged onto my
domain account and everything worked fine. I set up outlook 2k7 beta to
access my Exchange server and all was good until I decided to disconnect the
VPN. It wouldn't disconnect at all - kept giving me an error that it was in
the process of "connecting or disconnecting" and that I would have to try
again later.

I ended up unplugging the whole network cable for a bit to get my VPN router
at the work end to dump the connection. I then reinserted the network cable
and went on about my business.

When I tried later to reconnect to the VPN, it just instantly goes to
"unable to connect" after clicking the "connect" button. It isn't even
trying. I deleted the VPN connection and tried to recreate it but that
didn't work either. All that did was delete the previously working
connection. Now when I try to recreate it, I go through the wizard and at
the end, after clicking "connect" it instantly tells me that "the wizard is
unable to connect" and asks me if I want to save the connection without
connecting. If I say to try to connect again, it just does the same thing
again. If I tell it to save the connection, the window closes, but when I go
back into the "connect to" menu, there are no connections available.

How do I recreate a working VPN connection?

Also, how do I tell it to connect to the VPN before logon? I can do that in
WinXP by "log onto dial-up connection" thereby connecting my VPN and allowing
all logon scripts to run. Is that possible in Vista?

Thanks,
Jeff