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Seems Microsoft has finally gotten around to addressing the issues of slow file transfers with Vista (all editions). Knowledge Base article 932170, "When you copy large files to or from earlier operating systems, the copy operation may be slower than expected on some Windows Vista-based computers," is Microsoft's "official" nod that something is wrong with the TCP/IP networking stack in Vista - and the fix is their attempt to address the issue.
There's a link on that page about Receive Window Auto-Tuning, which is turning out to be the culprit related to many things from random disconnects from your Internet connection for no apparently good reason, the slow file transfer speeds that people have been complaining about since nearly day 1, that "max file transfer limit" that has another thread here but is fairly limited to the actual instances where it's occurred, etc.
This link takes you to an article that explains more about the Receive Window information. The article is a bit dated as it was written smack dab in the middle of Vista's development (back in 2005) but it still provides excellent background info about that aspect of Vista.
Another article published just a few days ago also mentions and speaks of Receive Window tuning issues, and it's written by a manager of one of the Windows Internet Protocol teams. It's worth reading, and you can find that article here.
That article makes mention of several possible issues or causes, one of them being an older router that does not have the necessary support the Receive Window Auto-Tuning makes specific use of. A firmware update from the router manufacturer can address or even resolve the issues, but that's not always something you'll have luck with. I own(ed) a D-Link DI-524 router up until recently and experienced severe and constantly re-occurring disconnects with Vista - if I rebooted the exact same computer to running XP (dual boot) I never had disconnects at all for days or weeks at a time.
However, all I had to do was boot into Vista and within an hour I'd start having 1 minute to 20 minute periods of disconnects and absolutely no data flow whatsoever from my PC to my ISP - it effectively killed the router in some way and even now I'm still not sure exactly what's broken. I recently replaced that older router (just over 2 years old) with a newer model D-Link router only (the DI-524 is a Wi-Fi router, btw) that has an updated firmware that seems to be holding out with Vista just fine - no disconnects to speak of so far when I use Vista.
There's one last thing I'll add here, something new to me and maybe new to some other people. Microsoft knew/knows about issues with Internet connectivity and Vista, and so they created the Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool (ICE-T for short... ain't that a kick in the pants).
This "tool" can theoretically determine if a component in your data pathway (most of the time it'll be the router) is a probable or the most likely cause of Internet connectivity issues when using Vista. It will test some aspects of XP Internet connectivity also, but for the full suite of tests, Vista is required. I ran it earlier after I found it and it told me all the things I already knew under XP, but I've yet to run the test under Vista with this new(er) router.
So, in a nutshell there's a few links with information and hopefully resolutions to some of the issues that people are having with Vista. No, it's not perfect, no OS is or ever will be, that's a practical impossibility. But at least an ongoing effort is underway to improve the issues with some haste which is decidely different from years past.
Good luck, either way, and I hope this helps...
There's a link on that page about Receive Window Auto-Tuning, which is turning out to be the culprit related to many things from random disconnects from your Internet connection for no apparently good reason, the slow file transfer speeds that people have been complaining about since nearly day 1, that "max file transfer limit" that has another thread here but is fairly limited to the actual instances where it's occurred, etc.
This link takes you to an article that explains more about the Receive Window information. The article is a bit dated as it was written smack dab in the middle of Vista's development (back in 2005) but it still provides excellent background info about that aspect of Vista.
Another article published just a few days ago also mentions and speaks of Receive Window tuning issues, and it's written by a manager of one of the Windows Internet Protocol teams. It's worth reading, and you can find that article here.
That article makes mention of several possible issues or causes, one of them being an older router that does not have the necessary support the Receive Window Auto-Tuning makes specific use of. A firmware update from the router manufacturer can address or even resolve the issues, but that's not always something you'll have luck with. I own(ed) a D-Link DI-524 router up until recently and experienced severe and constantly re-occurring disconnects with Vista - if I rebooted the exact same computer to running XP (dual boot) I never had disconnects at all for days or weeks at a time.
However, all I had to do was boot into Vista and within an hour I'd start having 1 minute to 20 minute periods of disconnects and absolutely no data flow whatsoever from my PC to my ISP - it effectively killed the router in some way and even now I'm still not sure exactly what's broken. I recently replaced that older router (just over 2 years old) with a newer model D-Link router only (the DI-524 is a Wi-Fi router, btw) that has an updated firmware that seems to be holding out with Vista just fine - no disconnects to speak of so far when I use Vista.
There's one last thing I'll add here, something new to me and maybe new to some other people. Microsoft knew/knows about issues with Internet connectivity and Vista, and so they created the Internet Connectivity Evaluation Tool (ICE-T for short... ain't that a kick in the pants).
This "tool" can theoretically determine if a component in your data pathway (most of the time it'll be the router) is a probable or the most likely cause of Internet connectivity issues when using Vista. It will test some aspects of XP Internet connectivity also, but for the full suite of tests, Vista is required. I ran it earlier after I found it and it told me all the things I already knew under XP, but I've yet to run the test under Vista with this new(er) router.
So, in a nutshell there's a few links with information and hopefully resolutions to some of the issues that people are having with Vista. No, it's not perfect, no OS is or ever will be, that's a practical impossibility. But at least an ongoing effort is underway to improve the issues with some haste which is decidely different from years past.
Good luck, either way, and I hope this helps...