Vista to XP large file transfers over wireless fail consistently

[Mark Rinfret]

I am experiencing a wireless network (802.11g) compatibility issue between
Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows XP Pro. When I attempt to copy large
files (e.g. 200 MB or larger) from my Vista-based laptop to a share on one
of my XP Pro systems, the transfer starts normally and proceeds at a
reasonably good clip. It then stalls and dies, somewhere between half-way
and two-thirds of the way through the transfer. Diagnostic information is
useless (essentially, "an error happened - Try again or Cancel") and no
Windows events are recorded on either end.

What's strange is that I can login to the Windows XP system (Remote Desktop
from the Vista laptop) and then "pull" the file from the Vista laptop with
no problem. If, at the Vista laptop, I copy the same file from the Windows
XP machine, the transfer also succeeds. In all of my testing, I have only
attempted the copy with Windows Explorer, copy/paste. I'm not really
interested in side-stepping the issue by trying XCOPY, ROBOCOPY, FTP or some
other file copy approach.

Prior to making this post, I have searched far and wide for shared
experiences related to this problem and have found some (e.g.
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-netwo...ork-transfer-error-cant-send-large-files.html),
but no solid conclusions or solutions. I have performed the "disable
auto-tuning" trick on Vista, using netsh. I've removed the QOS and IPV6
drivers from the network stack. I ran Microsoft's Internet Connectivity
Evaluation Tool
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/using/tools/igd/default.mspx) to check my
router for compatibility with Vista and it passed with flying colors (even
though I don't believe it's relevant to this problem). I've tried different
network paths to rule out disk errors or I/O performance issues. I routinely
move gigabytes between my various other wired (gigabit LAN) systems,
including another Vista Ultimate machine, without problems.

I have no network connectivity or permissions issues, nor do I have any
network performance issues - other than this one. Everybody plays nicely
with everbody (and it's a good-sized party, for a home network . I work
at home. When I get tired of sitting in the upstairs office, I come
downstairs and use my laptop, usually remote desktop'ed to several systems
(via my wireless network) without any issues at all. To me, this is clearly
a Vista issue with outbound wireless transport. Perhaps the heterogenous
nature of the network (Vista and XP mixed) is a factor. What's not so
apparent is the solution - and don't suggest that I "upgrade" all of my XP
machines to Vista.

If you're still interested, here are the relevant parts of my configuration.
The listed order describes the network path between the two machines.

Dell E1705 laptop (Core 2 Duo) with Vista Ultimate, SP1 and 1390 WLAN
mini-card.
D-Link DWL-G700 wireless access point - about 8 feet away from my laptop.
D-Link DGS-1005D 5-port gigabit switch
.... Cat5 wiring ...
D-Link DGL-4100 gigabit gaming router (I'm not a gamer, but a good router)
Netgear gigabit switch
Dell 8400, Windows XP Pro, SP3, Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit C

Here's some more info. Note that everything is on the same subnet
(192.168.2.):

** IPConfig of the laptop **

C:\Users\mrinfret>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration


Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : ri.cox.net
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.126
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.101

Ethernet adapter LAN:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : ri.cox.net

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 6:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 11:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : ri.cox.net

** traceroute between systems ***

C:\Users\mrinfret>tracert -d 192.168.2.74

Tracing route to 192.168.2.74 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.2.74

Trace complete.

Got any ideas?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Mark Rinfret]

Well, I never got any responses to my query, so maybe I'm just talking to
myself here. (Hey, it happens.

I did find a solution and thought I'd "close the loop". Disable the "Remote
Differential Compression" feature in Vista. If you need to know how to do
it, just Google this term:
vista disable remote differential compression

You'll get a lot of hits. I don't know why that was so hard to find back
when I posted this problem, but it appears that everyone knew it but me.
When I initially experienced the problem, It seemed to be a wireless thing.
Yesterday, I was trying to cut/paste a set of large files (home movie DVD
images - VOB files) from my Vista Ultimate 64-bit system to an XP Pro system
(both quite robust systems) and experienced the same problem. Removing the
"wireless" search term revealed a LOT of folks with shared circumstances.

Mark

 

[Mark Rinfret]

Just to keep this little dialog with myself going...

My previous "solution" turned out to be of the "not a" type. In other words,
I observed what appeared to be a correction, but sustained testing revealed
that things were pretty much as bad as before.

HOWEVER! After continuing my search for a fix - including Windows Explorer
replacements (even RoboCopy didn't work) and finally resorting to installing
the beta version of Vista SP2, I think I've made a useful discovery.

My network has a 4-port D-Link DGL-4100 router/switch (gigabit). One of the
ports in the router is used as a link to a NetGear GS108 gigabit switch. My
Vista Ultimate 64-bit system (the source of the files being copied) was
plugged into the NetGear switch, while my XP Pro system (the destination)
was plugged into one of the three remaining router/switch ports. I never
even considered this as a likely source of the problem. I moved the XP Pro
system network cable to an unused port on the NetGear switch (both machines
are now connected to the same switch) and I'm now experiencing sustained
(and apparently error-free) large file transfers at just under 24 Mbps. (The
Remote Differential Compression feature remains disabled, so I don't know if
that was a factor.)

While I'm happy to have a solution, this experience doesn't say much about
Vista's error detection and recovery capabilities. In fact, I'm pretty
disgusted with Vista, at this point.

Mark