Slow Network?

Let's stay on the subject of slowness. Today, I have once again, come across a company complaining about a slow network. This will be a mixed discussion concerning Windows Vista and Windows XP Pro.

One of the things that Windows XP incorporates, is the My Network Places folder. When you connect to shared folders, Windows makes a copy of the shortcut in that folder. This tends to slow things down. If you keep this folder clean, you should get an improvement in speed. There is also some registry tweaks, but I'm not going into that for now. Then you may connect to a share by entering UNC names in the Explorer search bar like: \\computer\share. Using UNC names may also cause a delay, having to resolve the IP to the proper name. Try using \\IP\share, for example: \\192.168.3.3\public. This can also give you a speed boost, especially if it is a huge shared folder that you access. Now, when on a domain and you get "Applying personal settings" or "Applying network settings" staring at you for a long while when logging in, you can be sure that you have a DNS problem. Nine out of ten times, it is because your primary DNS is not set to your server's IP (Your DC) So if your server IP is XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX, set your DHCP server so that the workstation's primary DNS will be XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX. Finally, locate your "hosts" file and add your server in there. For instance: server[TAB]IP where [TAB] is the actual tab button and the IP is the IP of your server and "server" is your server name.
In Windows XP the host file can be found here:C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc Edit the hosts file with Notepad.