I’ve finally found a fix for using Messenger at home, turns out the problem might be something to do with the shockingly poor design of my Netgear router, and Windows expectation that things should actually work the way they’ve been designed.
Apparently Windows “auto-tuning” networking feature doesn’t play nice with some routers. Not sure if it is a bug in Windows, a bug in Messenger or a bug in the router firmware but anyway this looks like a possible workaround that might help other people who have the same problem.
Here’s how to disable auto-tuning…
- Click start, All Programs
- Accesories
- Right-click Command Prompt
- Click Run As Administrator
- Type the following: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
- Press enter
- Restart your computer
via Microsoft