Hack Attack : Hack Vista to Browse at High Speeds
photo credit: jpctalbot
I’m not a Windows Vista fan, but even then everyone at my home uses Windows Vista, while I dual boot with OSX on my Hackintosh.. I’ve used XP before and for some reason I always felt that Internet speeds on Vista were comparably slower than on OSX, and more so even Windows XP.
Considering it was quite slower than what I used to get on XP, I realized that Vista was doing something extra that made my internet connection slow down. After a bit of investigation and a bit of googling I found the solution.
Before I give the solution, let me explain the problem in a bit more detail… It all comes down to Vista’s “Auto Tuning” feature. Turns out that this feature isn’t compatible with many routers and networking devices(including mine). Means the feature that was supposed to be a boon turned itself into some sort of a bane.
Anyways here’s what you need to do turn off the Auto Tuning feature on Vista..
At the Start menu type command, but don’t launch the command prompt immediately. Instead, right-click it and choose Run As Administrator. Once the prompt is open enter the following command.
netsh interface tcp show global
If the line Receive Window Auto-Tuning Level does not say “disabled,” enter this command:
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=restricted
If this doesn’t help, substitute this command and see if it works
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled
At this moment, you should notice considerable improvements in your browsing speeds, or rather you should be cruising now. If it works, you should notice the difference in browsing speeds immediately. If it doesn’t work for you, and you feel the need to put things back the way they were, you can type this command:
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal
Here are screenshots showing the whole process, incase you feel the need for it..
Good luck, hope this works for you.. Please let us know if this worked for you or not..
22 Comments, Comment or Ping
Umar
hey… i’ve installed osx in my desktop too…. i download the kalway osx 10.5.2 iso got it… one problem though… osx does not recognize any of my PCI cards and my inbuilt ethernet port… so i cant get internet on my PC… any suggestions??
Aug 3rd, 2008
Mike Ryan
Where is the donate button? Seriously.
This worked amazingly. I hadn’t even realised how dampened my browsing speeds were until this. My browsing speeds have been cut in half, at least.
Aug 3rd, 2008
LJXD
Thankyou so much, everything loads heaps faster now
Aug 3rd, 2008
Karthik Kastury
@Umar, this isn’t the right place to post your problems with osx86.. Please post your comment in the right thread..
@Mike, glad it worked for you great. I will be writing more and more such tips in the future.. Staty tuned, and regarding donations I guess I’ll pass.. Thank you.
@LJXD, great going. Please tell your friends about this, so that it will be of some use to them as well..
@Everyone, please stumble this article so that it helps many more people..
Aug 3rd, 2008
IanG
Excellent little Hack Attack.Worked like a treat, browsing is ten times faster now! Thank you.
Aug 3rd, 2008
Asgaro
Wow, this actually works!
Thanks!!
Aug 3rd, 2008
Relton
Hmm. Quite interesting.
Aug 3rd, 2008
Freelance Web Design
Very cool. And we thought FireFox was the only browser with tricks up it’s sleeves.
Aug 3rd, 2008
Nivco
Worked great for me!!
Thanks a lot!
Aug 4th, 2008
Thomas Beckingham
great stuff,
those that it has helped, could you please let me know which one of the two commands Karthik suggested that you used. Just out of interest =)
Aug 4th, 2008
Jack
Thankyou I have a vista laptop and a dual boot osx vista desktop…this was amazing how is this not a widely known hack? Is there any negative effects of doing this?
I chose the disabled command because I felt like it.
Aug 6th, 2008
Dave Guinan
im not sure if this has worked for me ……… i have not been on your site for a week and im a fire fox user so i used your firefox hack at the same time as doing this and my internet speeds have boosted so im buzzing im not sure if its one or the other or both but something has worked
Cheers mate
Aug 8th, 2008
Shane
This “hack” is best/only for Vista RTM, MS updated TCP/IP and networking etc in SP1… so my recommendation is try Vista SP1 (with/without the “hack” if you must) and see how you go.
http://dotnetwizard.net/?p=542
Or Google… vista sp1 autotuning=disabled
I’ll try this “hack” on my freshly built Vista Ultimate with SP1 (SP1 built in, new iso), but don’t expect much.
I still swear by “TCP Optimizer”, and the “webtweak”…
http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php
And they have info on disabling autotuning…
http://www.speedguide.net/faq_in_q.php?qid=247
Have fun.
Aug 8th, 2008
IanG
I thought i would give this little Hack Attack a try on Vista Server 2008,but it alreadt set at normal. Just another reasons to convert Server 2008 into a workstation.
Aug 8th, 2008
Jack
@IANG
If it is set to normal then that means that is turned on. You want it at disabled I think.
Aug 9th, 2008
Multi-Monitor Computers
Vista is a Drag. I want to like it, but it’s not much better and it’s hogs up more of the system resources. Oh well. Another Great Article!
Aug 12th, 2008
Kenneth Sim
The command prompt worked for me but I don’t really notice the difference in the speed… maybe I just don’t realise it
Aug 16th, 2008
sampat
good work, it’s really working
Aug 29th, 2008
Jon Anderson
holy shit lol this is awesome. i had no idea it was slow. i <3 you and i <3 me for stumbling upon this
Oct 2nd, 2008
Donovan
What the Hell, It works, It really does. Eureka….
When will we be able to see a “humble” Vista workin with no need to hackin’ it??
Why Microsoft do this to us? I guess it’s just we don’t read between the lines, they want us to convert to Ubuntu.
The more I use Vista the more I miss XP, I swear if it did’t have Aero…
Oct 6th, 2008
Rich
Hi
Half my browsing ground to a halt this morning. As did every other vista I know of around here.
This fixed it instantly.
Bizarre.
Cheers
Rich
Oct 22nd, 2008
Marie
Well, no luck. For either suggested command I get an error message:
Set global command failed on IPv4 The requested operation requires elevation.
Since I have no idea what that means, guess I’ll live with the untweaked for now.
Thanks for the info though.
Oct 29th, 2008
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