Vista limits networking bandwidth in order to be more lame
I upgraded my network connection to Gigabit Ethernet and ran some tests which revealed that I had NO speed increase going from 100-mbit ethernet to 1000-mbit ethernet – both came in at 8MB/s. My tests involved timing the download of a large file from a linux server sitting next to the switch. I plugged in my Mac laptop, and the file flew across at 50MB/s. I asked one of my networking friends, and he pointed me to this article. It turns out that Vista purposely caps network traffic because there is a chance that the network traffic might make your audio playback skip if you have a really slow computer. I thought it was too stupid to be the culprit, but I tried it out. Sure enough…
Red – before registry tweaks to turn off audio throttlling service
Green – After following instructions in the link
Yellow – Theoretical Maximum