File transfer slow down

When my friend and I attempt to do file transfers using Win Live Msgr I am
able to transfer at good speed but he is not. I would estimate his transfer
rate at less than 5kb/sec. We both have broadband cable connections. Mine
is 8,000kb down/375 up. His is 6000kb down/225 up. There appears to be no
significant difference in file transfer speed if a voice connecton is in use
or not except that his voice will garble during the transfer of files from
him to me but not from me to him. This was not a problem back in the "good
old days" of MSN Messenger. Any suggestions?

Greetings,

He's probably using some sort of NAT (aka router) which doesn't support UPnP. Without
working UPnP, file transfers will go through a relay server which is incredibly slow.

He can quickly check what the Messenger has detected his connection as by clicking the Tools
menu (or pressing Alt-T), then Options, then Connection category and wait for 10 seconds or
so.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.
--

"Jerryfrmmt" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
> When my friend and I attempt to do file transfers using Win Live Msgr I am able to transfer
> at good speed but he is not. I would estimate his transfer rate at less than 5kb/sec. We
> both have broadband cable connections. Mine is 8,000kb down/375 up. His is 6000kb
> down/225 up. There appears to be no significant difference in file transfer speed if a
> voice connecton is in use or not except that his voice will garble during the transfer of
> files from him to me but not from me to him. This was not a problem back in the "good old
> days" of MSN Messenger. Any suggestions?
>

> "Jerryfrmmt" <> wrote in message
> news:. ..
>> When my friend and I attempt to do file transfers using Win Live Msgr I
>> am able to transfer at good speed but he is not. I would estimate his
>> transfer rate at less than 5kb/sec. We both have broadband cable
>> connections. Mine is 8,000kb down/375 up. His is 6000kb down/225 up.
>> There appears to be no significant difference in file transfer speed if a
>> voice connecton is in use or not except that his voice will garble during
>> the transfer of files from him to me but not from me to him. This was
>> not a problem back in the "good old days" of MSN Messenger. Any
>> suggestions?

>"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <> wrote in message
>news:C412E053-C7CD-4DAD-A039-...
> Greetings,
>
> He's probably using some sort of NAT (aka router) which doesn't support
> UPnP. Without working UPnP, file transfers will go through a relay server
> which is incredibly slow.
>
> He can quickly check what the Messenger has detected his connection as by
> clicking the Tools menu (or pressing Alt-T), then Options, then Connection
> category and wait for 10 seconds or so.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay

Yes, I've seen this too, and it's a total PITA.

On previous versions of messenger, file transfer was hard-coded to ports
6891-6900 ( you could host a max of 10 simultaneous transfers ). This was
simple to handle on Non-UPnP NATs or Firewalls. You simply port-forwarded
this range to the relevant PC on the NAT, or opened them inbound on the
firewall to the machines you wanted. File xfer was direct, peer-to-peer,
and fast.

After installing Windows Live .NET Experience Messenger, this no longer
works.
File xfer now uses dynamic port assignment via UPnP.

When you xfer a file, the endpoint peers determine they are un-reachable via
their random ports, and fall back to relaying via ( slow ) servers in the
sky. This was confirmed by doing a wireshark trace of the session.

This is basically un-useable in a non UPnP environment, which for example I
have.
( I'm using a fully-routed public netblock ( IPv4 and 6 ), no NAT, and a
corporate-grade hardware firewall, all supporting native IPv6. These are
intentionally non-UPnP devices. The firewall policy is derermined by the
firewall administrator, not random applications running on the inside. )
Of course, I *could* lose my fancy stuff and throw in a £50 cheapie domestic
router with UPnP, but that's not going to happen!

What would be an excllent feature would be the ablity to restrict the file
transfer port range, so that it could be managed in a non UPnP environment.
Rather like the ability to set a restricted PassivePortRange for passive FTP
on IIS FTP server. I don't suppose you know of such a registry tweek?

--
Best Regards
Ron Lowe