Hi, I have an office full of PCs. Some are XP and some have just been upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate, some x86 and x64. These computers are connected via both cabled and wireless infrastructure using Cisco switches, routers and WAPs. These computers are members of a new Server 2008 domain. These computers are a random collection of Dell and HP desktops and Sony and Tohiba laptops. My problem is that the Windows 7 PCs cannot sustain large internet downloads (> 5Mb or so). They can surf the net not worries at all but large downloads just slowly slow down and eventually just stop at random places. There is no error message, it just sits there doing nothing. It happens with all applications, Internet Explorer 8, iTunes, Media Player, Windows Update, and Microsoft Security Essentials. Transfers to and from the server work fine and my XP boxes work fine as they always have. I have searched the forums and this seems to be a common problem but none of the solutions work for me. I have disabled tcp auto tuning, disabled all IE add-ins, started in safe mode, updated drivers, tried both wired and wireless NICs, disabled Bonjour and stopped the Function Discovery services as mentioned in another TechNet thread. I cannot put the computer directly into the modem as in other threads because it runs through a Cisco HWIC in the router. If I have to do this to fix it then W7 sucks. This is driving me nuts and I've lost about two solid days to faultfinding ... is W7 just broken in this regard? Its a shame because I like the rest of the upgrade. Mark

<<< Help ?!?!?!?!?!?! >>> .. anyone ?

Hello Mark, I'm having the same problem with Windows 7 64 bit and no problem with the old XP computer. I am doing everything I can to solve the problem but like you no luck. Sometimes the download and upload speed tests work properly. Other times the download or upload will run at the correct speed until the end of the test and then it just drops in speed and remains that way forever. With very large downloads the data just freezes until I pause the download and then resume it. All is well for a short time and then it will stop. So I have to sit watching the whole download until it finishes. Lots of fun. This is intermittent on my system. If you come up with an answer before me I'll be checking the posts. I wish you luck. I'm glad I'm not alone though. Chip

Hello Mark, I'm having the same problem with Windows 7 64 bit and no problem with the old XP computer. I am doing everything I can to solve the problem but like you no luck. Sometimes the download and upload speed tests work properly. Other times the download or upload will run at the correct speed until the end of the test and then it just drops in speed and remains that way forever. With very large downloads the data just freezes until I pause the download and then resume it. All is well for a short time and then it will stop. So I have to sit watching the whole download until it finishes. Lots of fun. This is intermittent on my system. If you come up with an answer before me I'll be checking the posts. I wish you luck. I'm glad I'm not alone though. Chip Same issue here with win7 ultimate 32 bit. Let me know if you guys fond out something...come on Microsoft, the upgrade wasn't exactly cheap! -Bob

OK .. it's taken me ages but I've finally worked it out. I think I now also know more than I ever wanted to know about SMB2 and how Windows 7 does TCP handshaking and control. It turns out that Windows 7 does not like my Cisco router IOS SPI firewall. I had a fairly tight firewall inspect regime that seems to interfere with SMB2. I turned it off and all worked perfectly and then had to spend some time gradually locking it back down again until I got a good mix of performance and security. I found that nothing I did with the TCP settings in Windows 7 would change the problem, turning off receive auto-tuning, ctcp, ecn or even disabling the software firewall made it work. I didn't go to the extent of turning off SMB2 all together, but that was going to be the next stop. Anyway, if anyone else is having troubles with downloads stalling at random places, try having a close look at the firewall in your router. Mark P.S. thanks Microsoft for nothing and causing me grief for a month and a half. I guess now I can continue on my rollout.