A client computer (301) hosts a virtual private network tool (311) to establish a virtual private network connection with a remote network. Upon startup, the virtual private network tool collects critical network information for the client computer (405), and sends this critical network information to an address assignment server (319) in the remote network (407). The address assignment server compares the critical network information with a pool of available addresses (325) in the remote network (409), and assigns addresses for use by the client computer that do not conflict with the addresses for local resources. The address assignment server also provides routing information for resources in the remote network to the virtual private network tool (417). The virtual private network tool will postpone loading this routing information into the routing tables (315) of the client computer until the client computer requests access to a specific resource in the remote network. When the client computer requests access to a specific resource in the remote network (601), the virtual private network tool will only provide the routing table with the routing information for that specific remote resource.
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