A ?new? tweak for XP SP2 users

[ColinM]

I found this on another forum. I ran it and it seems to be working. No errors in 12 hours. I set it to 150 connections.

Start copy & paste:

This only counts if you have Windows XP Service Pack 2, or Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

An easy way to see if you are affected is to check your event viewer:

Right Click My Computer and select MANAGE, then open System Tools, then event viewer tree, and select SYSTEM.

Scroll thru looking for a warning (yellow triangle with black '!') who's source is TCPIP. Open one of them.

The error will read something like this:

TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts

That means you are affected, if you don't see one for tcpip, open up a torrent and wait a few minutes until you are connection to people and downloading, then check event viewer again.

Anyone running xp sp2 has this issue, and problably doesn't know. I'm a tech and I didn't know til i saw one of those events in my viewer and did some sleuthing on the tech forums.

Here's a link to the fix, which is NOT a virus, or spam, full of adware, etc... just a plain old script to fix it, AND it backs up your old tcpip stack, so you can change it back by running the fix again. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully, cause it replaces windows files, and windows will ask you to put in your disk to replace them, you have to close that and say no, don't replace the changed files, and tell it YES, Keep these new files.

Script download

Get that fix and apply it, set your connections to atleast 100. Sp2 only allows for 10 open tcp connections at a time, as opposed to unlimited before sp2.

This means, no matter how many peers/seeds/leeches you see on a torrent, you can only really connect to 10 at a time, per ten second interval.

This fix allows you to select your own limit. Windows put the limit to 10 to slow down the spread of worms, but it also kills torrents, because torrents are based on the fact that you are connecting to, and downloading from, multiple peers at once. If you connect to a peer with a fast upstream, you might not even notice, cause this in no way affects single one to one transfers, only torrent like transfers.

Basically look at the number you assign with that app as how many people you can be connected to at the same time. If you don't have good A/V & firewall solutions I'd say forget it, cause it does make you a little vunerable.

Don't go crazy and set that number to something like a million. The fix recommends 50, I say 100.

The more connections the better right? WRONG. Too many connections will kill your speed. For every connection, there are signals to setup, maintain, and close the connection.

If you have too many connections, the signaling alone floods your bandwidth.

I use it, I set mine to anything between 100 and 1000 (i never saw a difference between the speeds i get with 100 and 1000) and it makes a hell of a difference.

[reece]

Hey, thanks for the heads up on this Colin. The link doesn't work, though.
Much appreciated.

[reece]

This link should work.


script download



Thanks again Colin.

[feralicious]

I'm not falling for that old switching the links trick Reece.

[saltman]

I think you're gonna find this doesn't have to be used anymore. Most clients have been recoded to limit the amount of unconfirmed connections, etc. to work with xp sp2. I know Azureus and BitComet has for a fact.