Thank you for your help! I haven't been home the last few days but finally got the chance to try it out...

Ping - seems to work just fine. Comes back with "Reply from 192.168.1.103" etc. a few times. (I confirmed that 192.168.1.103 matches what the TiVo is)

But within the browser, it comes back as not being found and doesn't let me through to any login or other screen.

Your understanding of my situation was right though - an internal wireless network to which both my wife and I attach to share the internet connection. I have VPN software on my computer, but I have to launch it myself, similar to yours, so that if I don't have any need to be on the company network I don't have to be. I have to turn all my proxies off to get onto my own network and then launch VPN software if I desire to get in. If I don't need to get in, I don't launch the remote connect software. I've tried the TiVoToGo with both the remote network enabled and disabled, and no changes in my capabilities.

To make matters more confusing, I can't even try my wife's computer because hers is more locked down than mine. No software can be loaded onto the computer without admin rights, and her IT dept won't even tell her what the password is to log on as the admin. They questioned her just for having me tinker with the wireless settings to make it work at home (they had it set to work solely on her school's network).

I saw the info on Tivo's forums too and I thought it might have boiled down to opening ports. My IT dept. said that wasn't possible unfortunately.

If I picked up an uber-cheap old laptop that would have no security restrictions, would it be possible to have that unit be the TiVo server and transfer recordings from the old laptop to my computer as a regular file? (Probably don't want to go this route anyway - getting too complicated, not that it isn't already).

(Edit to add a few things)

Found the Microsoft Firewall and made sure the ports were open in that, but it shouldn't matter because the entire thing was disabled anyway (using the corporate firewall software instead). Also went under my wireless network settings, clicked on "change settings of this connection", then on Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) - properties/advanced/options and highlighted TCP/IP filtering and properties and verified it was permit all for TCP/UDP. Not sure if that's relevant or not actually, but I was just trying to poke around.

Going into the actual used firewall settings I can see listings saying "Deny UDP Inbound from 192.168.1.103 port 2190" (More interestingly, I'm seeing a deny/block something from ...104, which I have no idea who that is...anyway, something to think about another day) Is this confirmation that it's the firewall blocking TiVo access each time the TiVo tries to connect to my laptop?

Thank you again for your help!