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The Most Important Vista Internet Speed Tweaks – Once You Can Connect

New technology is great when it works, but I was quite disgusted to learn that Microsoft implemented IPv6 on Vista and upon install it is set as the default. The silly part is that it simply doesn’t work well with devices that still utilize the IPv4 protocol – and to assume that most home networks are fully upgraded to the IPv6 protocol is a faulty approach to setting defaults.

So, if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself in this situation – the very first thing you should do before we can even get started speeding up the Internet, is to disable IPv6 so that you can at least get on the Internet in the first place. Here’s how it works.

First, go to Start -> Network -> Network and Sharing Center, and then click on “Manage Network Connections.”

In this screen, you’ll likely have a wireless connection displaying that it can’t connect to any network. Right-click on that icon and select “Properties.”

You’ll discover both IPv6 and IPv4 enabled. Go ahead and uncheck the box for IPv6 and click “OK.” You’ll need to reboot your computer.

Vista Connection Tweak #2 – Autotuning

This is another case where the cutting edge technological advances being enabled on Microsoft’s operating system by default is a recipe for disaster for users. Vista comes installed and enabled with something called “Receive Window Auto-Tuning.”

On advanced networks, it’s actually a pretty cool technology where the transfer of data is monitored and Vista automatically “tunes” the TCP window field to optimize packet transfer. Older routers simply do not “play nice” when it comes to that kind of window resizing. This spells trouble for home users.

Luckily – there’s a way for you, the home user, to turn this default feature off as well. First, click on “Start” and type “cmd” and right-click on the command icon. You’ll see the following window.

Click on “Run as Administrator.”  Then, in the command box, type “netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled” which will disable autotuning.

Now you’re ready to tweak Vista even more in order to dramatically boost the Internet speed.

Vista Tweak #3 To Increase Internet Speed – Take Back Your Bandwidth

Another unnecessary default setting that Vista (and actually XP as well) comes with is a 20% “reserve” of your available bandwidth in order to accommodate certain applications like Windows Update. This tweak is a pretty common one most old-school users of XP already know – it’s not at all detrimental and you can immediately gain 20% of your bandwidth back, increasing Internet performance significantly.

This is called the QoS Reserve Bandwidth Limit, and to reduce this on any version of Vista you need to edit the registry.

Go to Start and type “regedit“. You may have to deal with the UAC, unless you’ve turned it off.  In Regedit, navigate to  “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows”

Now look for a folder in the left column named Psched.  Does it exist already?

If Yes, click the folder and check the right pane for a DWORD file named NonBestEffortLimit. Make sure the value is set to zero. To change the value, simply double click on it.

If the Psched folder does not exist in the left pane, right-click on the Windows folder and create a new key called “Psched“, then right click anywhere in the white space on the right pane and create a new “DWORD” entry.  Name this entry “NonBestEffortLimit” and set the value to zero to disable reserve bandwidth.

Close the Registry Editor when complete.

NOTE: Proper capitalization and spacing are crutial when editing the registry. Be sure to enter the settings exactly as you see them.
 

Vista Tweak #4 – Modify Your Browser For Optimum Speed

Believe it or not, not only is your Vista operating system not configured by default to blaze the Internet as fast as possible, but neither is your Internet browser! These instructions include how to increase your browsing speed on Firefox and IE.

Firefox Tweak

First, in Firefox type, “about:config” into the address bar (and ignore any warnings).  In the filter field, type “network” and scroll down to “network.http.pipelining” and set it to TRUE, and set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” from 4 to anything from 8 to 12.

I use Firefox almost exclusively, and this one change increased my page-load time by what felt like a factor of 50%. Of course, there’s a similar tweak for Internet Explorer as well, but you have to edit the registry.

Internet Explorer Tweak

As before, go to Start and type “regedit.”

Navigate to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Internet Settings” and find “MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server” and “MaxConnectionsPerServer.” Set these to at least 10, or a little higher if you would like. You should also see an increase in performance for IE after making this change as well.

Vista Tweak #5 – Increase DNS Cache

This tweak is one that anyone should do anyway, as it can significantly save time while surfing the web, especially if you tend to visit the same sites often. What the DNS cache does is store information retrieved from the nameservers (IP information) so that the next time you visit the same site, your browser doesn’t have to waste time retrieving the same information from the DNS servers.

You can optimize this by increasing the size of your DNS cache.  This is another registry edit – so go back in there (Start and type “regedit“) and navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters” and then right click on the white space at the right and add four DWORD values: CacheHashTableBucketSize, CacheHashTableSize, MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit and MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit.

Use DWORD (32 bit value) for both Vista 32 bit and Vista 64 bit versions.

After checking a list of sites for the optimum setting for these values, the consensus seems to be decimal settings of CacheHashTableBucketSize to 1, CacheHashTableSize to 384, MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit to 64000 and MaxSOACacheEntryTtlLimit to 301.

When you’re done making all of the changes above, restart your computer.