Windows Gain 20% bandwidth with Windows XP pro

iljs
Windows uses 20% of your bandwidth! Get it back

A nice little tweak for XP. Microsoft reserve 20% of your available bandwidth for their own purposes (suspect for updates and interrogating your machine etc..)

Here's how to get it back:

Click Start-->Run-->type "gpedit.msc" without the "

This opens the group policy editor. Then go to:

Local Computer Policy-->Computer Configuration-->Administrative Templates-->Network-->QOS Packet Scheduler-->Limit Reservable Bandwidth

Double click on Limit Reservable bandwidth. It will say it is not configured, but the truth is under the 'Explain' tab :

"By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default."

So the trick is to ENABLE reservable bandwidth, then set it to ZERO. This will allow the system to reserve nothing, rather than the default 20%.
works on XP Pro and 2000 ONLY

 

Just FYI, it has no effect on broadband bandwidth though. It may take 20Mb/s of a 100Mbit LAN connection but I've tested it and there's no internet speed difference. Still, it's worth doing just to feel better about not letting Bill steal your bandwidth

 

Why not to remove QoS Packet Scheduler from network connections, and disable QoS RSVP Service?

 

Okay, I'll do that when I get home. With 56k, I don't have 20% to spare.

- H.

 

There is a major documetn about this. Somewhere on Microsoft.com. Basically it states that in some programs itll give that 20% and in others it wont.

 

Intresting.. Will have to check that out. Thanks

-scoob8000

 

no they dont, its Quality of Service. it 'reserves' 20% of you network bandwidth (not internet) for certain services
the idea being you can give priority to certain network traffic

quick google brings up: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/qos.htm
"Quality of Service (QoS) refers to the capability of a network to provide better service to selected network traffic "
this makes no difference

 

Clarification about the use of QoS in end computers that are running Windows XP
As in Windows 2000, programs can take advantage of QoS through the QoS APIs in Windows XP. One hundred percent of the network bandwidth is available to be shared by all programs unless a program specifically requests priority bandwidth. This "reserved" bandwidth is still available to other programs unless the requesting program is sending data. By default, programs can reserve up to an aggregate bandwidth of 20 percent of the underlying link speed on each interface on an end computer. If the program that reserved the bandwidth is not sending sufficient data to use it, the unused part of the reserved bandwidth is available for other data flows on the same host.

Correction of some incorrect claims about Windows XP QoS support
There have been claims in various published technical articles and newsgroup postings that Windows XP always reserves 20 percent of the available bandwidth for QoS. These claims are incorrect. The information in the "Clarification about QoS in end computers that are Running Windows XP" section correctly describes the behavior of Windows XP systems.

 

Isn't this ooooooold news?

 

they've dug up fossilised cd's with this info on

listen to Quack!

 

Microsoft is stealing from you! We have to take the power back people!

Does this mean I can get an extra 700mb/sec on my memory bandwidth? That should come in handy for my 3dmark05 score

 

Changing that setting didn't affect my network benchmarks at all. But I went a step further and disabled everything in the lan connection properties except for TCP/IP.

That change took my bandwidth from 8Mbs to 10-11~ Mbs..

Defeats the purpose if your using file and printer sharing though. Tests were done with FTP using FileZilla client on one machine and server on another.

-scoob8000