Hey Guys, just wanted to say thanks to everyone that helped.
In the end... I managed to get it working but had to use OPEN VPN to make it do so.
I did have to go to the ADVANCED | FIREWALL SETTINGS, and 'APPLICATION LEVEL GATEWAY (ALG) CONFIGURATION' then check 'PPTP' as well. so thank-you for that suggestion.
It seems there's something about the VPN connection in the windows 7 networking under control panel that was giving me grief... as no matter what i did it refuses to work that way.
I'm still a bit mystified about that because it was working before. But at least it's working with open VPN now.
thanks again guys