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Fix Problems With Copying Large Files in Windows Vista

If you've been having problems copying large files over mapped drives, network disconnects, or having to reboot your router a lot more often than normal, then you can try out this fix to solve the problem.

The problem stems from the new auto-tuning network, which changes the receive window on the fly. Thankfully we can easily turn it off from an administrative mode command prompt.

Open Administrative Mode Command Prompt

Either type cmd into the start menu and use Ctrl+Shift+Enter or right-click the Command Prompt shortcut and choose Run as Administrator.

Turn Off Auto-Tuning

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

You'll have to reboot your system, but once you do, the problems should be resolved. If they are not you can always turn auto-tuning back on.

Turn On Auto-Tuning

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal

For more information on this topic, you can read this article from MSDN blogs.

The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 04/21/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, Network and Internet

Comments (9)

  1. Everton

    Geek - you're a star! this has really been bugging me.

    Another one for you - any idea how to remove the need to login to view shared folders?

  2. Video_freak

    Yes! Ah this is going to save me sooo much time. Thanks a bunch!
    I thought this was a bug in Vista, but it's all gone now. :)

  3. Madam J

    this is awesome!..I nearly pulled my hair out dealing with Vista's asenine feature (what the heck happened to the "Yes to All" button?)…this solution helped, though it was still a bit slow it was not nearly as slow as 230 days remaining…

    you rock!

  4. zdawgz

    Just tried and I get: Set global command failed on IPv4 The requested operation requires elevation?

  5. The Geek

    zdawgz,

    administrative mode command prompt…

  6. Jenny

    My windows xp system hangs (blue screen of death) when i try to copy files larger then 4 GB to my a nfs mounted filesystem (solaris9). I have unix for windows installed on my xp system. I can copy the files from the solaris to the windows system without problems…but the windows systems always hangs when i try to copy back to the nfs filesystem. Help!

  7. Robin

    I'm sad to report that this doesn't work at all for me :(

    If anything I think its making it worse. Now if I try copying files from my vista box to my xp box it hangs almost instantly after it starts copying. Quite annoying. Hopefully microsoft will fix all this in SP1.

  8. Melina

    Hi there,

    any chance you could help me out? This fix doesn't solve my problem: copy my OS ghost image to another drive for recovery over ext hdd :( (Original file on DVD and is approx 5GB)

    Thak you in advance..
    m.

  9. Agustin

    Damn!!! I upgrade mi Vista to SP1, and the problem stills there!!! I disabled all features that I don´t need on Networks…. I do all that recommends on this page, and the problem stills there, I can´t copy large files from a machine running XP to my machine running vista….
    But the strange thing is that if I command to copy the files from the xp machine, works flawlessly!!!

    Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.
    Agustín


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