Sometimes Microsoft products do things that make you want to send Bill Gates back to the slammer! I had a client that was complaining of slowness while browsing network drives on a Vista machine. Sometimes while browsing the network drives, Windows Explorer (not to be confused with Internet Explorer) would display the spinning circle for a very long time and then lock up. It usually ended up showing a not responding message. The fix for it was actually very simple.
Do this. Go to the command line. In Vista, go to “All Programs,” “Accessories,” and then “Command Prompt.” At the black box, type the following two commands:
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
netsh int tcp set global rss=disabled
Restart your machine and retry browsing your network drives. If you are unsatisfied with the result and want to reset these settings, type the following commands in and restart:
netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
Happy browsing!

I keep getting the following message (when attempting to disable autotuning with your instructions.
I type: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
I receive: Set global command failed on IPv4 The requested operation requires elevation.
What in the dickens is “elevation”?
Thanks, Aviva
Aviva,
You need to run Command Prompt as Administrator.
When you go to Accessories right-click on Command Promt to choose this.
it’s actually an issue with user access control. you need to go to control panel, and select “turn user access control on or off” at the bottom of the white space once you select your user account. then you should be able to issue these commands.