The ip is assigned staticly on the server

on my laptop running windows xp, the ip is set to automatic, but I manually enterd in the dns as the server ip address

I cannot point autoacquire or autoacquire.local(my domain)
but I can ping host.autoacquire.local (host being the server name)

I can also do this net use * \\host.autoacquire.local\c$ which works fine, but it still wont let me connect to my domain


Time on both computers are the same

You should be able to ping just "autoacquire" by name if you are physically connected to the same network that your AD config is running. You said you have VPN set up...maybe try joining the domain from there. If that works then something is still incorrect in your IP settings of your AD. Check your DNS configuration AGAIN. Make sure your DNS zones are set with the correct IP settings...a restart of the service is required for each change you make. Use ipconfig /flushdns on the hosts. Check the error log for errors in the directory or DNS. Research errors on Google. Screenshot DNS if you want...it's likely DNS, Time or something in your IP settings.

in the domain to join type "autoacquire.local", not host.auto... because host the the server, not the domain.