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Part of this is due to SP2 for XP and beyond which had a big
impact on P2P apps, it limits the number of concurrent ports
that can be open to 10.

A hack/patch has been made, and one I know of off the top
of my head is put out by this guy.

And it opens up 50 ports for you for P2P use and you should see
a huge increase in your speed.

He has a detailed write up on it here:

http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=4226patch/faq

There is a fix from http://www.lvllord.de/?lang=en&url=tools to raise that limit.

Except that it doesn't. XP SP2 introduced a limit to the number of half-open connections you can have open at once. The limit (10 by default) is essentially never reached during normal use. Some poorly-configured Bittorrent clients can hit the ceiling, but it isn't that hard to disable the limit if you do a quick search.

Sounds more like your running an older BT client that goes above XP SP2's Max Connection limit. If you go above the max number of 10 XP's connection will take a dump. Newer BT clients will work around it (unless the user changes values), but the best way to fix it is to just REMOVE it.

Actually, there's one more comparison they've screwed up. Anyone who has installed the Event ID 4226 patch to increase the allowed number of half-open connections so their BitTorrent speeds don't suck ass just had that patch undone by this new version of TCPIP.SYS.

The only good thing is that, while the page hasn't been updated since 2006, the patch seems to work on the new TCPIP.SYS (I just tested it on my own machine).

I realize I'm sort of hijacking the first post, but given how many of us are probably downloading Linux ISOs right now, I figured it's important enough that people wouldn't mind a reminder... :-] Oh, and I'll add one more detail not mentioned here. According to F-Secure, there haven't been any exploits for this found in the wild--yet.

Mucking about with things that are new or unfamiliar to you may have deleterious unintended side effects on your system. The same mucking about may also lead you to learn a few new tricks. I personally encourage trying new things but I would also like to strongly recommend that if you are unsure of yourself, practice on a system that is not relied upon for work or school. Missing deadlines can be bad; losing a nearly complete master's thesis can cause you to do things that will land you in jail. By contrast, toasting the install on a completely spare system may just give you an excuse to try the latest Linux/BSD/Solaris install that you've been itching to play with.

With that said.

A google search for "TCPIP.SYS patch" will turn up a little information on this.

The tool I used to change mine was nLite, which allowed me to make the changes to my install media prior to performing a fresh install. The desired setting in this program is in the 'Patches' area.

Another tool is available from a small German website that claims to allow you to change the settings without requireing a complete re-install. I have not tried this tool myself yet (since when I did my last install, this tool did not support x64) so I would recommend that you manually create a backup of your tcpip.sys file and set a windows restore point before you test it.

As for modifying your torrent client. I would recommend trying BitComet and playing with the connection settings paying particular attention to the effects of throttling the Global Upload rate, Max connections per task and max half-open connection settings. Other clients may have similar settings but you'll have to find those for yourself.

Hopefully this information was helpful and does not toast your system.

I just installed it and completed an hour long phone call to a landline. I used the cheap out-of-the-box microphone that came with my Dell, and my computer speakers (not headphones), just like a speakerphone.

Worked beautifully. Neither I nor my friend had any problem hearing, and it didn't sound like a speaker phone all -- none of those typical speakerphone "click on/click off" noises at all. We could even both tallk at the same time, with both of us more-or-less audible. It was just about as if my friend was in the same room as me. (Some of the credit is probably due to my soundcard.)

I did have a major CPU utilization problem with Skype until I uninstalled McAfee's firewall, which made the audio terrible. McAfee had long been disabled in favor of (the free, better, not reliant on IE and Active-X) Kerio, but I hadn't gotten around to removing it entirely. Once removed, no problem with Skype at all.

Also, as I have Windows XP SP2, it was necessary to install this TCPIP.sys patch to get around Microsoft's "helpfulness".

Anybody know of a tird party TCPIP.SYS for Windows XP?

Also the http://www.lvllord.de/ patch should be mentioned here. Does anybody have any information on how information for patches like this one (i.e. how to know that TCPIP.SYS was the file to patch and where to patch it) is acquired?

* P2-266M laptop runs XP (SP1a to avoid 'Event ID 4226') - Internet gateway, firewall & network AV montoring.
* P4 1.7G tower runs SuSE - general PC, file server, 24/7 P2P slave ;)
* Centrino 2G lappy runs XPSP2/SuSE - The every-day PC.
* Ethernet enabled standalone DVD/MP3/MPEG4 player - A cheap & cheerful CD/DVD/LAN based media player
* Not to forget my PS2 ;)

All does me proud... Archos's new touch screen, WiFi, Linux based PMA400 PVR looks as if it could be a cool edition to the home media network.

Where is the link to the community-developed workaround? I know of http://www.lvllord.de/ but that is just a workaround to the connection limit issue - which is really less of an issue

Actually there is a way to fix it http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools

The TCP/IP stack now limits the number of simultaneous incomplete outbound TCP connection attempts. After the limit has been reached, subsequent connection attempts are put in a queue and will be resolved at a fixed rate. Under normal operation, when applications are connecting to available hosts at valid IP addresses, no connection rate-limiting will occur. When it does occur, a new event, with ID 4226, appears in the system's event log.

XP SP2 patch (you also need this one after you've applied april's 'critical' updates.

The limit sucks, and makes it almost impossible to connect to P2P networks, use bittorrent or do other stuff power users do. It effectively cripples the system under the guise of 'worm protection'.

It supposedly protects the net from outgoing worms, unless these worms start patching tcpip.sys, which is probably just an extra line of code to add to the virus. So it's actually no protection at all.

XP Sp2 limiting the number of connection/sec This feature/function can be handy from security point of view. Bink.Nu links to a functionality in Windows XP SP2 that limits conncurrent TCP/IP connections. I vaguely remember reading some relating when I was using Windows 2000 as well about a setting in registry where we can limit the number of TCP/IP Connections. On Googling I found the following link and on this forum . You can save your computer from P2P programs trying to make many connections at the same time and this can also apply to some of the viruses and worms.

Also, there is a legal tool going around to change the maximum number of outgoing TCP connection imposed (only 50(!) by default), so you can keep using bittorent.

Incorrect; the limit is 10 outgoing incomplete connections, not total outgoing connections.

You can have all the complete outgoing connection's you'd like.

This shouldn't be noticable, really, to mom & pop type users.. but to power users (P2P, network admins, etc.) it can be a pain. There is an unofficial patch available, but no guarantees.

eMule always logs me on with a lowID, even if I plug the computer directly into the cable modem

Probably due to changes regarding the number of outbound and incomplete connections the TCP/IP stack can make; pre-SP2, it was unlimited, in SP2 it's limited to 10 connections. That's not 10 connections at once, that's 10 _incomplete_ connections, something P2P apps like to make all the time.

There is an unofficial patcher available, but use at your own risk..

Haven't tried google desktop, but the problem with P2P apps and SP2 is that SP2 sets a limit of 10 pending connection attempts per process, which would indeed mess around with some P2P apps. Fortunatly there is a fix (although not an official MS one, so either find one from a more trustworthy source or be careful!) that rectifies this problem. I assume it was done to attempt to slow down spam-bots, and hence no easy-to-change for users/the spambot registry entry.

which is why you need to install the fix that limits incoming connections. http://www.lvllord.de/4226fix/4226fix.htm

Perhaps you should have looked around a bit for the solution to your problem? Namely, http://www.lvllord.de/. The program at that site will patch your tcpip.sys to change the rate limit, so using bittorrent (or any similar program) won't instantly block out all other tcp/ip conections.

i've read on various p2p boards that sp2 puts a cap on tcpip connections (something like 10 in and 10 out) and some p2p apps have difficulties getting as fast of xfer speeds with things like bittorrent than they used to before sp2. some folks have created patches like this one that undoes this change, but i have no idea as to the credibility of the patch and whatnot...

If you use bit torrent, or some other type of swarming P2P app, SP2 limits the number of connections you can make per time period, and slows things down tremendously. Technically, it's there to slow down worms. Anyway, here's a third party patch to fix it: http://www.lvllord.de/

I have been having this problem on my Inspiron ever since I installed SP2. I have tried a lot of things, and I highly suggest http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm for tweaking your services settings.
Another way to boost your speed is hanging your Prefetch setting, http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270_11-5165773.h tml has a great article on how to do it.
TCPOptimizer http://darkedge.levels4you.com/review.l4y?file=20 also helped speed up my collection a lot.
Another cool tip is fixing Event ID 4226 which limits your connections in SP2, check it out at http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools#4226patch.
And, of course get the MS TweakUI for XP at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/power toys/xppowertoys.mspx.
And although they are not freeware I actually bought and really like Registry First Aid http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/reg1aid/ and Registry Compactor http://www.rosecitysoftware.com/RegistryCompactor/ .

I hope you all have as much success as I have with spedding up XP. It is a pain in the butt to do it, but it is worth it in the end.

As far as I've managed to tell it has only "broken" one thing for me. The outbound TCP connections were limited to 10/sec. But then I went here:

http://www.lvllord.de/?url=tools#4226patch

And found a fix for it. All of the FUD that I've seen about SP2 breaking things mainly focuses around which apps aren't automagically detected by the built in firewall as "allowed". Considering that having to add rules to a firewall config is pretty standard amongst all firewalls, I'm pretty lost as to why this is considered "breaking" an app. I'll admit the TCP thing was frustrating, but that's the only problem I've encountered.

So for what it's worth, I've been running SP2 in beta and release form for about 1 month now on my primary system. And I've had only the one TCP issue. I've also had it running on 5 other "test" boxes (read: other family member's computers). And so far no one has reported a problem. Although obviously YMMV.

I'll admit I haven't formally been running the XP firewall (I turned it on to check it out, but I have my own firewall solution that I prefer). But turning it off was easy enough and I checked into configuring it and that seemed easy enough as well (you go into the control panel icon and select the programs you want to allow incoming access on).

Now lets not continue down the road complaining that it's broken because it's too difficult for "Joe Blow" to configure his firewall and as a result we should consider it "broken". Realize that at the same time "Joe Blow" probably can't properly configure ANY firewall. User ignorance doesn't mean something is broken. If I put power steering fluid in my brake lines because I don't know better, and my brakes lock up, that's not the car's fault.

Anyone who's interested in a REAL solution that eliminates the changes to TCP/IP connection limits by Service Pack 2 should go to this site:

http://www.lvllord.de/index2.htm

This patch DOES work and fixes the REAL issue which is a change to the TCPIP.SYS file.

NOTE: If you ever re-install or repair your TCP/IP protocol or your network system/drivers/files, then you will need to re-run this patch since windows will replace the TCPIP.SYS file with the one on your CD.

SUGGESTION: If you want to modify your XP CD to include a patched TCPIP.SYS after you slipstream the CD with Service Pack 2, you can follow the guide below: http://unattended.msfn.org/xp/hacked_files.htm Cheers

By hacking the DLL

Holy crap, the limit is ten. Ten pending SYNs! Yeah, I'd say that would be pretty effective at killing almost all P2P.
Makes me glad I use Linux 95% of the time.

Check Here for a fix.
There's both a downloadable patch as well as manual instructions for patching by hand for the ultra-paranoid.