The speed of your network connection doesn't just depend on the speed
of your hardware. Windows is an operating system that is designed to
work on a variety of different hardware and network setups. Because of
the abstract nature of the operating system, it cannot be optimized for
user-specific hardware setups.
Depending on the type of network connection you have, you might be
able to tweak your connection so that the speed of your Internet, as
well as your local area network, will be faster. By hacking the System
Registry and editing the TCP/IP parameters, you can fine-tune the values
to take advantage of more reliable, faster Internet connections, such
as DSL and cable.
These next sections will guide you through the steps of
increasing both the speed of your local area network and your Internet
connection.
Does your computer slow down when you browse your local area network
and connect to other computers that are sharing data? One of the most
common causes of this slowdown is a feature of Windows Explorer that
looks for scheduled tasks on remote computers. This effort can take some
time on some computers and can really slow down your browsing. The
window with which you are browsing the network may appear to freeze
momentarily, as the system is waiting for a response from the remote
computer.
Although this problem is a complex one, the solution is very simple.
Instead of having to wait for the remote scheduled tasks, which is
useless information to anyone who is not a system administrator remotely
configuring scheduled tasks, you can disable this feature.
In order to do this, you will have to hack the System Registry
and delete a reference to a key so that this feature will not be loaded.
To do this, follow these steps:
- Open up the Registry Editor by clicking the Start Menu and selecting
Run. Then type regedit in the text box and click the OK button.
- Once the Registry Editor has loaded, expand the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key.
- Next, expand Software and then Microsoft.
- Locate Windows and expand that as well.
- You will want to be editing the main system files, so expand CurrentVersion.
- Because this feature is a feature of the Windows component known as Explorer, expand the Explorer key.
- Next, you will want to modify the remote computer settings, so
expand the RemoteComputer key and then expand the NameSpace key to show
all of the features that are enabled when you browse to a remote
computer.
- In the NameSpace folder you will find two entries. One is
"{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}" which tells Explorer to show
printers shared on the remote machine. The other,
"{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}," tells Explorer to show remote
scheduled tasks. This is the one that you should delete. This can be
done by right-clicking the name of the key and selecting Delete.
Tip:
If you have no use for viewing remote shared printers and
are really only interested in shared files, consider deleting the
printers key, "{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}", as well. This
will also boost your browsing speed.
Once you have deleted the key, you just need to restart and the
changes will be in effect. Now your network computer browsing will be
without needless delays
Disabling unneeded protocols
With every computer comes programs installed that you do not need. As
with extra programs taking up space, extra protocols are just wasting
your network connection and can actually slow it down. How is this
possible? By default, a few different protocols are installed on your
computer to allow for maximum compatibility with other computers on a
network; these protocols each require bandwidth to operate. Most users
will not use too many protocols, and their computers will use up a
portion of their connection as they respond and transmit information for
these protocols.
Additionally, with extra protocols installed on your network
adapter connected to the Internet, you increase your risk of
security-related problems. One of the most common risks for broadband
users is that they have the Client for Microsoft Networks networking
protocol enabled on their connection. This protocol allows everyone in
their neighborhood to connect to the users' computers and view any files
that they may be sharing. This fact alone should be a good enough
reason for you to turn off the extra protocols. But with them disabled,
you will also save a little bandwidth as well.
Viewing protocols on your network adapters
Viewing the
protocols installed and active on your various network adapters is easy.
Just follow these quick steps and you will be viewing them in no time:
- Right-click the My Network Places icon on the desktop or in the
Start Menu and select Properties. If the My Network Places icon is not
in either of those locations, then go to the Control Panel and click the
Network Connections icon that is shown under the Classic view.
- Next, right-click the network adapter with which you want to view the network protocols and select Properties.
- This will bring up a list of the protocols installed as well as
active on your adapter, as Figure 11-11 shows. The protocols that are
installed but not active are indicated by the absence of a check in the
checkbox.
Disabling a specific protocol Now that you have
the list of installed and active protocols on your screen, you are ready
to disable a protocol. To do so, just click the check box to remove the
check. Then click the OK button and the protocol is no longer active on
the network adapter.
I highly recommend that you disable all protocols except for the
TCP/IP protocol (also referred to as the Internet Protocol). Doing so
will optimize your adapter for speed and security.
Be aware that if you remove the Client for Microsoft Networks
protocol and the file-sharing protocol, you will no longer be able to
share your files. Additionally, you will no longer be able to connect to
remote computers to view their shared files.
Also keep in mind that if you have multiple adapters in your
machines, such as a wireless adapter, a wired network adapter, and a
dialup modem, you will have to repeat the preceding instructions for
each adapter.
Tweaking your Internet connection for speed
Almost every computer user has different Internet connection
conditions. Some users have very high-speed connections, while others
have slow connections. Some users have high-speed connections using
cable-based technologies, while others have high-speed connection
through DSL-based technologies. On top of these differences, some are
located farther away from their local network switching station than
others and have a higher latency (delay) on their connections because of
the distance the data has to travel. All of these different connection
conditions make every user unique.
The TCP/IP protocol settings can be optimized for best speed
under each of these situations. By default, Windows XP has these
settings set in a "one size fits all" approach. As I mentioned earlier,
Windows has to be abstract in certain areas because of its broad user
base. Because of this approach, many users can fine-tune their settings
to be optimal for their connection conditions. Doing so will optimize
the data transferred so your network connection will be more efficient,
leading to high speeds.
With a little help from some fine online tools and software
programs, you can test your Internet connection and decide what needs
fine-tuning. The process of tweaking your Internet connection is not
always easy, but it is doable.
Caution: Before going any further, you are strongly advised to create
a system restore point, so that if things go wrong, which is not very
likely, you will have a backup.
The next step in the tweaking process is to get all of the
software that is needed. The main software program that you will use is
called CableNut, which is developed by CableNut Software and is
available for free at
www.cablenut.com CableNut is a great program that allows users to edit their Internet
settings easily. Visit their Web page and download and install the
latest copy.
Calculating settings for CableNut
Once you have downloaded CableNut, you are ready to start getting
information to use with the program. The first value that you will need
to calculate is the latency of your connection when it is active. To do
this, you will use the trace route command built into Windows XP. Follow
these steps to get the latency value to use for your connection:
- First, open up a Command Prompt window. This can be done by clicking
the Start Menu and selecting Run. Then type cmd in the text box and
click the OK button.
- Once Command Prompt is loaded, you are ready for the next part.
Because you will need to test your connection when it is active, you
will need to find something large to download that will run the duration
of the test, which will be approximately 30 seconds. I recommend that
you head over to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads and find some huge file, such as the .NET SDK framework, which is
over 100,000 KBs. For the test, you want a file big enough so it will be
downloading throughout the whole test. Those of you on a dialup
connection can pick a much smaller file than those on a high-speed
connection.
Once you have your download test file picked out, start the
download and switch back to the Command Prompt window. In that window,
type tracert
http://www.tweakxp.com/ During the test, you will see many times displayed in
milliseconds. After the test finishes, pick the highest time, as shown
in Figure 11-12. This is the number that you will use as your latency.
Also, feel free to cancel the download after the test is finished.
Entering the latency value into CableNut
Now that you have the latency value calculated, you are ready to
enter this information into a great online CableNut settings calculator
written by Joe Zeiler, who is one of the talented moderators at the
TweakXP.com support forums. Open up your Web browser and visit http://www.j79zlr.com/cablenutXP2k.php (the URL is case-sensitive!), then follow these steps to get the values to enter into CableNut:
- Once you have opened up the site, the first part of using the
settings calculator is to select your connection type from the drop-down
box.
- Next, you will have to do a little research and find out
exactly what your upload and download speeds should be for your Internet
connection. I had to contact Comcast, my ISP, to find out the exact
values, because the values are not always advertised. Once, you get
those values, make sure that they are in kilobits per second and not
kilobytes per second (KB= kilobytes; Kb= kilobits), then enter them in
the corresponding text boxes on the Web page.
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- Enter the latency value that you calculated earlier into the
latency text box on the Web page and then click the Calculate button.
- After you hit the Compute Settings button, scroll down and you
will see the values that were calculated. Now, you are almost done.
Continue scrolling down until you see a button labeled CCS File
Generator under the Cablenut setting files section. Click that button
and a new window will pop up with some text in it. Make sure that you
have any pop-up blockers disabled when you are using the calculator.
- Use the mouse and select all of the text and numbers that are
displayed in the pop-up window. Right-click the mouse and select copy to
copy all of the text on the page to the clipboard.
- Now open up Notepad from the Accessories folder. In the blank
Notepad window, paste the contents of the clipboard by right-clicking
the white background and selecting Paste.
- Once Notepad is displaying the information that you copied from
the pop-up window, all that is left is to save the file in the CableNut
format. To do this, click the File menu bar item and select Save As.
Then in the Save As Type drop-down box, select All Files. Key in
myCableNutSettings.ccs in the file name text box. Specify the Save
location, such as the desktop, and click the Save button.
You are now finished with the calculations that will optimize your Internet connection. That wasn't too hard now, was it?
Using CableNut to adjust settings
Now that you have created your CableNut settings file, or will be
using the 56K settings file, you are ready to start using CableNut.
Follow these steps to import the new optimized settings into your
system:
- Start up the CableNut application by opening the Start Menu and
browsing to the CableNut folder and selecting the adjuster application.
- When CableNut has loaded, click the File menu bar item and
select Open Custom Settings File. Navigate to where you saved your
settings file, or if you are a 56K user, use the file that is on the
companion CD, called 56K_CableNut.ccs, and then click the Open button.
- Now you will see the information boxes for all of the different
parameters filled with your connection-specific information, as shown
in Figure 11-13. The last step is to click the Save to Registry button
and you are finished. After you click the Save button, reboot, and your
new settings will be in effect.
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