Vista problems with Bittorrent

Hi, guys. I bought a notebook with Vista Premium already installed and when I went about installing all the programs I needed, I noticed that uTorrent wouldn't work. It'd download about a few kbits before freezing up entirely. Does anyone know if Microsoft's new push into the P2P market with Vista is somehow disabling bittorrent programs? Because I've yet to see anyone else having problems using bittorrent on Vista. Thanks in advance.

 

have you tried disabling UAC / Windows Firewall and testing?

 

I disabled the Firewall. I'm not sure about UAC. What's that? Sorry, I'm not that fluent in the terminology.

 

User Access Control
http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm
I would use method 4 first -

 

Thank you. I will definitely try this when I get home from work. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

Also - you may want to try changing the default folder that Utorrent saves to? maybe there is some permission issue there - but disabling UAC may fix it - just keep in mind that by disabling UAC that you will no longer get popups for installs, ect. So be carefull what you click to install / run - So it *can be* a security risk depending on what the user does/clicks.

 

As far as I know, uTorrent prompts for a location to save files, so I'm not sure about the default folder. But yeah, I get what you're saying about disabling UAC. I'm pretty careful with what I download/install, so hopefully there's no problem there. I'll let you know how everything works out once I get in front of my laptop.

 

Theres probably also a problem with The Ports BitTorrent is using to contact the tracker.

You need to forward some ports if you have Router. Also, Windows firewall is useless, so you may as well disable it, as long as you have a Router firewall.

http://portforward.com/

 

Now the new Windows Firewall I heard is beefed up with not only inbound, but outbound filtering support (has anyone tested it yet?) - I would agree that you need to port forward, Utorrent has a link to ensure your router (if you have a router) is forwarding properly. And the port is 17606
http://www.utorrent.com/testport.php?port=17606

 

I actually just downloaded and tried uTorrent for the first time last week. Other than the typical "uTorrent.exe is trying to access the internet. Do you want to allow it?" message the first time I tried to open a torrent, I haven't had a problem with it. I never touched any settings in Windows Firewall (actually, I've been using Onecare), or UAC.

Are you using Vista64?

 

It's Vista32. Does that make a difference? I really hope not.

 

No it shouldn't - should be harder to work with x64 than x86

 

Okay, I tried all of those and still nothing. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with the forwarding? I entered the port numbers exactly under my router.

http://portforward.com/english/rout...B90-220030-04/BellSouthB90-220030-04index.htm

Should I be entering 17606 there?

 

did you try the link that tests to see if the port is forwarding?

 

Yeah. It's not forwarding. And when I go into to fix the settings, still nothing. I'm at a loss. I'm at the point where I'm about to return this laptop and just stick with my AMD K6-II for another year. Please help me to not return to the stone age.

 

Did you check the port in uTorrent? There's some option about "Randomize Port each time uTorrent starts". Maybe you're port # is changing?

 

Yeah, I checked that. It's my bad. Apparently this laptop has two firewalls. The one for Windows and the one for McAfee. I disabled both and uTorrent seems to be running fine now. Now, for my next stupid question, is there a way to turn off the monitor on a laptop? I want to download a torrent overnight and see if it's actually working, but I don't want to keep the monitor on. Is there a way to do this? Thanks again.

 

Well if you go to the power options in the control panel, you can set how much time the pc has to be idle until the monitor is turned off.

 

Okay, back again. I'm now able to use uTorrent, but instead of just opening the program, I have to go to my static IP address and enable port 17606 every time I boot up my laptop. I never had to do this with my desktop. Any ideas on how to keep this port open even when I reboot? Thanks in advance.

 

I never tried uTorrent on Vista. But I can tell you that Bittorrent works perfectly on my machine running Vista.

FYI ... I use Bittorrent because it's simpler, smaller, easier to config and works just as fast as uTorrent or other apps IMO.

 

Yeah, but does it allow for what files you want to download? I remember when I used to use it, it only downloaded the entire torrent. Has this changed with later iterations?

 

Yes it does. The options on Bittorrent are not as visible as Utorrent and other apps.

 

Still looking for a hero to solve my quandary. Is there any way to keep my 17606 forwarded without having to go into my static IP to enable it? Seems like there should be because I never had to do this for my desktop. Thanks in advance.

 

you need to set the DHCP scope in your router - it should be default to around 50 IP's, if you only have one computer then set your scope to 192.168.x.100 - 192.168.x.100 and port forward to 192.168.x.100 - if if you have persay 2 pc's then 192.168.x.100 - 192.168.x.101 and then assign IP by MAC (if applicable in your router) and forward to the IP of the pc you are having assigned by the router - otherwise just use a static NAT ip - nothing wrong with doing it that way either - Most likely what was happening was that DHCP was giving you a different IP from what you were forwarding to -

 

Maybe you can set it so when you close the lid of your laptop, it's set to "Do nothing". My lcd screen shuts off when I close the lid.

Control Panel -> Power Settings -> Advanced

 

Instead of making another thread I would also just like to add that I am also having problems with Bittorrent. I've used Bittornado, utorrent, azureus, you name it, none of them work. They just freeze up my network connections and always stay at 0 kb/s. I port forwareded all the appropriate ports on my router and disabled windows firewall. I also too got a new laptop with Vista preinstalled and did not have this problem with XP, even with exactly the same settings as my XP laptop.