Turn Off Vista’s Auto-Tuning to Prevent Browser Slow-Down

Windows Vista includes a feature, “Receive Window Auto-Tuning,” that you’ve likely never seen mentioned on your desktop, but which can cause noticeable drag and even crashing when browsing certain web sites or using some routers or other network hardware. If you’re noticing browsing glitches that only occur in Vista, the Wise Bread blog has a tip, pulled from PC Magazine’s recent issue, that explains how to turn off auto-tuning and skip the spinning blue circle of death.

The simplest way to turn off auto-tuning is to launch a command prompt as an Administrator (type “cmd” into the Start box, right-click on Command Prompt and select “Run as Administrator), then enter the following line:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

That should do it, and turning it off won’t likely have any adverse consequences. If you find otherwise, turn it back on with:

netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal

Hit the link below for instructions on see if auto-tuning (and a host of other TCP-type functions) are enabled on your system and learn a bit more about it.