20 % bandwidth ????

watcher6342 said:

does microsoft still rob us of that, and if so, how can i get it back

They never did. That rumor was a complete and total fallacy posted by either a sadly misinformed "expert" or a malicious liar. It's a shame that too many people believe what they read and accept it without question. See Windows XP Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements and behavior. Here's the relevant excerpt:

Clarification about the use of QoS in end computers that are running Windows XP
As in Windows 2000, programs can take advantage of QoS through the QoS APIs in Windows XP. One hundred percent of the network bandwidth is available to be shared by all programs unless a program specifically requests priority bandwidth. This "reserved" bandwidth is still available to other programs unless the requesting program is sending data. By default, programs can reserve up to an aggregate bandwidth of 20 percent of the underlying link speed on each interface on an end computer. If the program that reserved the bandwidth is not sending sufficient data to use it, the unused part of the reserved bandwidth is available for other data flows on the same host.

For more information about the QoS Packet Scheduler, see Windows XP Help. Additional information about Windows 2000 QoS is available in the Windows 2000 technical library.

Correction of some incorrect claims about Windows XP QoS support
There have been claims in various published technical articles and newsgroup postings that Windows XP always reserves 20 percent of the available bandwidth for QoS. These claims are incorrect. The information in the "Clarification about QoS in end computers that are Running Windows XP" section correctly describes the behavior of Windows XP systems.

See also :
Increasing Band-Width by 2O%
Windows 7 stealing bandwidth?

Hello Watcher,

Baarod is correct.

The up to 20% is only reserved if called for by say if Windows Update specifically requests priority bandwidth as an example. Otherwise you will always have 100% of bandwidth. The tutorial below is the same as in Windows 7 as is in Vista.

QoS Bandwidth Reserve Limit - Vista Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn