Transferring files from 7 to XP via SMB

[Novox]

Since upgrading my machine here at work to Windows 7, I encounter a strange issue with transferring files to a Windows XP box.
For instance, I use a robocopy script to mirror my files. If I run it under Win 7, I get sporadic errors for some of the files that look like:

"2010/01/25 14:32:15 ERROR 64 (0x00000040) Copying [...whatever]
The network path is no longer available"

Sometime, the connection seems to recover and the transfer continues until
the next ERROR 64 occurs.

Note that this also happens when I use Windows Explorer to copy files, I also
get sporadically "The network path is no longer available"-errors.

I tested the connection with NetIO (UDP-bench) to make sure, there are no packet
drops due to physical problems.

I also tried various "compatiblity"-tweaks like the one described here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/3737-samba-network-share-issue-windows-7-a-3.html
unfortunately, no luck.

Strangely enough, a "pull-based" approach works, that is: if the XP box
initiates the transfer, everything works just fine.

Does anybody have some more ideas concering this issue?

 

[budgynana]

I have this exact problem and haven't been able to find a fix. I can pull files from XP machines onto this Win7 machine and can browse and stream from my network all day long with no problems at all.

 

[budgynana]

problem solved.... all i had to do was make sure flowcontrol matched, either enabled or disabled, on every computer. some reason win7 on this machine had it turned off.

 

[Novox]

Doesn't work for me, unfortunately.

 

[budgynana]

spoke too soon.

it worked... then stopped working >.<

if i use something like radmin i can push files perfectly fine. the strangest and most annoying thing about this is if i boot into winxp there's no problems at all!

 

[Novox]

Okay, I think I finally found a workaround:

Vista and 7 feature adaptive scaling of the TCP receive window. Some routers or other network devices don't work well with this feature. To disable it open a command shell with administrative rights and enter

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

This can reduce the performance of the TCP/IP-stack but should improve compatibility.

See also Vista Auto-Tuning | kombitz.com

 

[Novox]

Edit:

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=high

seems to work as well.

 

[fritzdis]

I've got basically the same problem (using Windows 7 to move large files to or from XP fails), and disabling autotuning did not solve the issue. I've also tried updating both NIC drivers, rebooting both computers into safe mode with networking, disabling as much offloading as I can for both NICs, directly connecting the computers (with 2 different cables), setting LAN Manager authentication level to Send LM & NTLM, turning Network Discovery off, and turning off IPv6, QoS, Link-Layer Topology Discover Mapper I/O driver, and Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder. Nothing seems to fix the problem.

I used Wireshark to do a capture of a failed transfer, but I have no idea what to make of the results. (Note that this capture was done after undoing most of the "fixes" I attempted above.)

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing my problem?

 

[Novox]

Well, it helped in my case. Maybe you got a problem with similar symptoms but other causes.