Windows 7 Networking Blues...(Or Is That Blows?)

For the most part, I'm satisfied with Windows 7. It's very stable and doesn't seem to embrace the principles of Rube Goldberg in the way that Vista did.Unfortunately that isn't the case in Windows 7 networking. Windows 7 added the Homegroup "feature" to simplify home networking. Onefunction I need is the ability to fully share a network drive between two Windows 7 computers. Well after a couple of days of wrestling with this, there is no simple or obvious way to do this. Nice work Microsoft.

I won't bore you with all of the details. There's plenty of online fulminating to be found on the subject.

Instead I opted to create a Workgroup. Sounds easy and we've been using these for years - right? But hold on. While file copying across a network was a no-brainer in XP, Windows 7 grinds this simple process to a mind-numbing snail's pace.

Remedies?

After reviewing a number of user forums, I discovered some changes you can make that might help.

First you can tweak the settings on your NIC (network interface card):


Under Network Sharing Center>Change adapter settings,right-click your network adapter and select “Properties”

Disabled Ipv6 (uncheck the box)

Click OK

Right-click your network adapter again and select “Properties”

Click on “Configure”

Disabled Large Send Offload (IPv4)
Disabled Large Send Offload (IPv6)
Disabled Receive Side Scaling

The other thing you can do is Disabled Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level. You need to use Microsoft's command-line interpreter to do this. (Wah?)

To access this tool, click on Start and type "CMD" in the "search programs and files" field. Then go to this URL for instructions on the process.

I can't promise that this will fix the problem but it worked for me.