Streaming Audio in Vista

[AladainAF]

I am having an interesting problem on all my vista boxes on my network, and after doing some internet searching, I found several people with the same problem, but they do not have a solution, and I'm hoping someone here might.

Anyway, I have a simple network setup - got 3 vista boxes at present, and I've got a server all wired to my local network. All the systems run fine. However, on my vista boxes (Originally I just do this with one Vista box, but I tested all of them), if I play via winamp or media player any MP3s/etc from my server, the Vista boxes will chug, freeze, and often lock up while the hard drive is thrashing like mad. If I let them play and dont touch the machine it works fine. But if I'm playing music in the background and want to browse more network resources, the internet, or basically anything over the network, the system will be taxed to hell, and often just not respond to commands. If I stop the audio playback, and other things are locked up, they will instantly start responding again.

I'm using Vista home premium 32-bit on all boxes. (Not my choice). On my 3 windows XP boxes, the problem doesn't exist.

Any ideas?

tl;dr - Streaming audio kills performance of all my vista pcs when i do anything else on the network at the same time (including web browsing). Doesn't happen on XP. How do I fix?

[Erumaron]

Vista RC1 or so flooded my network pretty hard. I believe (it's been a while) I googled things like "vista network flooding" and actually scored some answers. It's been so long though that I forget the details of a specific fix.

I stand corrected...the guide from back then is still up even. Who knows if it'll work on a modern build. I'm not even sure if it relates 100% to your problem but it doesn't hurt to put out there.

Windows Vista Build 5365 Tweak Guide

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Prevent network flooding and connection drops

The new networking stack contained in Windows Vista™, as with anything new (and still in beta), has some issues. This build seems to drop wireless connections and in rare cases block all traffic on wireless routers, requiring a restart of the router itself. To fix these problems, complete the following instructions:

WARNING: Please note that this will disable IPv6 connectivity, as well as the Windows Firewall security, and is not recommended unless you are experiencing these issues. This will also invalidate any network related bug reports you file against Windows Vista™.

Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Under “Network and Internet”, click on “View network status and tasks”.
In the left hand pane, click on “Open connections”.
Right click on your network connection (for example: Wireless Network Connection), and then click “Configure”.
If asked for permission to open Network Connections, click on Allow.
Highlight the following items and press the “Uninstall” button:
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper I/O Driver
Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder
Uncheck “Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)”
Uncheck "QoS Packet Scheduler"
Next, click on the “Configure” button under the name of your network adapter.
Click on the Power Management tab.
Disable all power management items listed on the Power Management tab.
Press OK.


To stop Windows Vista™ from flooding your network with traffic:

Press WinKey+R.
Type “services.msc” (without the quotes)
Double click on each one of the following services and change its startup type to “Disabled”.
Base Filtering Engine
IKE and AuthIP Keying Modules
IP Helper Service
IPSec
Windows Firewall
Close the Services window and restart Windows.