Windows Networking: Why does it suck so?
Jun. 27th, 2004 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaYesterday I finally set up my new computer. It's fast, it's got a good network connection, it's running Windows XP (a fairly recent release, with all fresh security patches).
After many hours of tinkering with XP network settings, Norton Internet Security, goat entrails, and cetera, I managed to get it to connect to the file shares on my old Win98 machine. Well, sorta. I can see my older machine (Y) from my new machine (A), get directory listings, and so forth, but when I actually try to do file copies, they crap out--very little or nothing gets transferred before the connection gives up (which often takes five minutes or so, with nothing transferred in the interval).
It's actually probably unfair to solely blame Windows Networking, though. Direct TCP/IP connections--say, an FTP connection--over the household network *also* suck, with transfer rates as low as 1K per second. (I can get 300K/second or more on connections to servers outside the household network, from either machine.) And TCP/IP connections are still unreliable, crapping out at unpredicable points.
Here are some of the details. The machines are both connected to an 802.11a wireless network, routed through a D-Link DL-704 connected to a D-Link wireless access point. As noted above, both connections are pretty strong and reliable. I enabled IPX/SPX networking on A to allow it access to the shares on Y.
Can anyone make suggests for improvement which don't involve abandoning Windows? (I need Windows XP for some work-related projects, which is why I bought the new machine in the first place.) I'm suspecting that the network router or the access point is doing a crappy job of routing packets within my household network; is there any way to test this hypothesis, or improve it?
After many hours of tinkering with XP network settings, Norton Internet Security, goat entrails, and cetera, I managed to get it to connect to the file shares on my old Win98 machine. Well, sorta. I can see my older machine (Y) from my new machine (A), get directory listings, and so forth, but when I actually try to do file copies, they crap out--very little or nothing gets transferred before the connection gives up (which often takes five minutes or so, with nothing transferred in the interval).
It's actually probably unfair to solely blame Windows Networking, though. Direct TCP/IP connections--say, an FTP connection--over the household network *also* suck, with transfer rates as low as 1K per second. (I can get 300K/second or more on connections to servers outside the household network, from either machine.) And TCP/IP connections are still unreliable, crapping out at unpredicable points.
Here are some of the details. The machines are both connected to an 802.11a wireless network, routed through a D-Link DL-704 connected to a D-Link wireless access point. As noted above, both connections are pretty strong and reliable. I enabled IPX/SPX networking on A to allow it access to the shares on Y.
Can anyone make suggests for improvement which don't involve abandoning Windows? (I need Windows XP for some work-related projects, which is why I bought the new machine in the first place.) I'm suspecting that the network router or the access point is doing a crappy job of routing packets within my household network; is there any way to test this hypothesis, or improve it?
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Date: 2004-06-29 11:06 pm (UTC)You need to give the XP box a fixed IP, if it's the server. Open My Network Places, right-click the wireless connection icon in the Network Connections folder, open Properties, choose Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and open its properties. Assign an IP address like 192.168.1.2 (something that doesn't conflict with the WAP & the cable modem) Subnet 255.255.255.0, and gateway the same as the IP address.
To disable the built-in XP firewall, go to the Advanced tab in the connection properties and remove the checkmark next to Firewall. Click OK.
Now, to bypass the WAP and set up a peer connection under XP, right-click the connection icon again and choose "View available connections" from the popup menu. Note whether you have any neighbor SSIDs showing up, then click the Advanced button. In the Advanced settings, under Preferred connections, click Add. On the next screen, allow Windows to manage the settings and enter a new SSID name. If you're not worried about neighbors, disable encryption. If you are worried, checkmark encryption, checkmark "use shared connection" and enter a password. Make sure the box at the bottom that says "This is a computer-to-computer adhoc network" is checkmarked. Click OK and you're done with that.
On the Win98 box, disable any third-party firewall from Norton & such. You also need to give the wireless adapter an assigned IP address. Right-click Network Neighborhood, open Properties, choose TCP/IP properties and give it an IP of 192.168.1.3 subnet 255.255.255.0 with the gateway as 192.168.1.2. DNS settings don't matter if you're not on the Internet. Click OK and reboot. (Maybe run Winipcfg from the Start->Run menu on the next boot to confirm that the IP address has taken.)
The wireless detection settings under Win98 are usually different for every vendor's adapter. In general, right-click on the icon in the Taskbar System Tray; find the WEP encryption settings, and enable or disable to match the XP box. Choose 64-bit encryption if it offers you a choice and enter the password. Then scan for new SSIDs and choose the name you set up under XP. That should allow the two Windows boxes to connect to each other under TCP/IP, ignoring the WAP and the cable modem.