VB to run after polling server?

Hello, i have a wee problem. I'm connecting a laptop to my network remotely and using some VPN software and a VPN box, when the client software runs it doesn't do anything but connect me, i want it to map some drives and kick off a file on a server. Basically what i want to do is start a batch file at the same time as the software and then have it run a continuous ping to the server, when it gets a reply from the server i want it to run the rest of the script. Thanks for any help in advance, i am making myself bald before my time over this.