Some good news on the MDTK issue: it finally occurred to me to install it on the LAN where the actual vPro 9 machines are located, as opposed to working through a VPN tunnel. Voila! Instant connection to the vPro 9 machines, which allowed me to enable their VNC ports so I can use the free UltraVNC for remote control as described here.
So the new description of the issue:
MDTK 1.31 _cannot_ connect to any vPro machines across a VPN.
MTDK 1.31 _can_ connect to vPro machines, including vPro 9 machines, on the local LAN. However it cannot connect to the machine where it is installed either user localhost or the actual IP address.
Some good news on the MDTK issue: it finally occurred to me to install it on the LAN where the actual vPro 9 machines are located, as opposed to working through a VPN tunnel. Voila! Instant connection to the vPro 9 machines, which allowed me to enable their VNC ports so I can use the free UltraVNC for remote control as described here.
So the new description of the issue:
Mark