We have a VPN set up between a home office and the workplace. Computer at the workplace is running Windows 2000 and carries the data files. Computers at the home office running Windows XP on one and Win2000 on the other, networked.
Work office has ADSL 1500/256, home office ADSL 256/64. WinXP machine at the home ofice is the internet gateway for the home network, running ICS and an internal ADSL Modem (PPPoE).
The question relates to the time taken to refresh folders when accessing a file folder at the work office via the VPN. If we map a drive to the data folder at the work office, the time taken for the XP machine to read the folder and actually allow you to work with it is vastly longer than if we do the same with the Win2000 machine. Also when clicking on a sub-folder, again the Win2000 machine is much slicker than the XP machine at reading the new folder, even though it is a slower machine, and is working through the XP machine for its internet connection. Copying a file from the work machine over the VPN to the XP machine seems to take for ever to even get to the point of copying, whereas the 2000 machine is pretty reasonable.
Can anyone give me a clue as to what it is that XP is doing to make itself so much slower at reading a folder over a VPN than the 2000 machine?
If you open an application (like MS WORD) on the XP machine and a open the remote folder and files that way, it doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad.
Any clues, anyone? Is it something to do with prefetch? If so, can I turn prefetch off?
In hope,
Alan