Downloading the latest graphic driver from Nvidia or ATI is a great
hint, but some unsolicited friends are waiting to be tweaked on the
network traffic too. I’m talking about who is continuously flashing
inside your trybar network icon, 224.0.0.252 and 239.255.255.250, or
if you prefer Link Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR) and
Universal Plug and Play (UPNP). The first one helps to solve host
names where DNS fails, the seconds gives to the UPNP complaint devices
the magic to be easily discovered and configured. As they both try to
make friendly the network administration, equally have pervasive
behavior (multicast) and security issues too.

To disable both LLMNR both UPNP you have to act on the Network
Discovery of the Network and Sharing Center:

1. open Network and Sharing Center by clicking on Start, Control
Panel, Network and
Internet, Network and Sharing Center
2. click the arrow button to expand the network discovery section
3. turn off network discovery and then click Apply.

Note: this action affects LLMNR, Netbios, web services discovery, SSDP
and UPnP services.

If this stop UPNP and LLMNR response, LLMNR requests are still active.
To mend this, you need to deactivate LLMNR one time for all: brrr..

By the group policy, i.e. Windows Vista Business / Ultimate or inside
a domain:

1. click start, type gpedit.msc and press enter
2. by the left pane go to Computer Configuration\Administrative
Templates\
Network\DNS Client
3. on the right pane set Turn off Multicast Name Resolution to
Enabled.

By the registry, i.e. Windows Vista Premium:

1. click start, type regedit and press enter
2. go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT
\DNSClient
3. set EnableMulticast to 0×0.

And finally you did it.

But is this the end of Internet? So, why to use both IPv6 both IPv4?
It’s not better to disable the still unused IPv6, mh? Let’s do it..

To disable IPv6 open the registry and proceed with the following:

1. go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
\tcpip6\Parameters
2. create the dword value DisabledComponents and set it to 0xFF.

Unsolicited traffic gone, overlapping layers deleted and what about
the CPU?

The CPU smiles..
;)

Technet - How to benefit from Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution
[url]http://blogs.technet.com/networking/archive/2008/04/01/how-to-benefit-from-link-local-multicast-name-resolution.aspx[/url]
IPv6day.org - Windows Vista
[url]http://www.ipv6day.org/action.php?n=En.Configuration-WindowsVista[/url]
Symantec - Windows Vista Network Attack Surface Analysis
[url]http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/reference/Vista_Network_Attack_Surface_RTM.pdf[/url]
Enable or disable network discovery
[url]http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/32f3845b-eda0-4168-be8d-90f07250d8101033.mspx[/url]


P.S: X-Drivers is the right place to find out the updated driver for
your nic..


Hope this helps,

Daniele


[url]http://blog.daniele.bonini.name/index.php/2008/05/09/tweak-the-network-to-earn-in-vista-performance/[/url]