This is related to the statement in our system requirements (for Windows):
"It is not possible to run a terminal-based ATK/VNL session on a remote network connection."
Basically, what it means, is that you must run VNL (and ATK) on the local machine where you sit (on Windows).
This does not, however, mean that the license server must run on the local machine, and that's the whole point of a floating license. It is even possible to tunnel connections to license servers, so if you have a license server running at the university, you can set up an SSH tunnel for the specific port specified in the license, and check out licenses even at home. This, of course, requires that you are allowed to SSH tunnel into the university network, i.e. that the firewalls are open for that kind of traffic.
The error referred to in the previous post by Serhan is also interesting, although it's related to something else, namely changing user names using the "Switch User" feature in Windows XP. I'm not sure how that would appear or affect running ATK processes, but apparently it will raise a similar error in FLEXlm with the same error code, so it's good that we now know two potential reasons for this error message.