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Internet & Networking => Networking => Topic started by: viking on October 30, 2006, 04:29:39 AM

Title: Windows XP Load Balancing?
Post by: viking on October 30, 2006, 04:29:39 AM
Being given a computer with Windows XP proffessional and a few network cards (2, as an example), it is possible to use Load Balancing? I've search the net, I found 2 links with some registry hacks (http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/951/ and http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips/WindowsNT/RegistryTips/Network/Loadbalancemultiplenetworkadaptercards.html) but no explanation. Apart from those 2 sites/links, just mountains of infos for Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2003 server.
Sooooo... Do you have any idea? A link? What kind of algorithm it's used? Windows XP is able to do load balancing? I suppose it is able to do load balancing, as I found on a microsoft document that XP uses a "new" type of queue, MSMQ 3.0, which offers the possibility of load balancing.
I will search forward, but for now, I'm stuck. And 5 hours of research with no positive response except those 2 sites, no explanations,  it's enough for 1 day... I'm a lousy searcher... :(
Title: Re: Windows XP Load Balancing?
Post by: Rob Pomeroy on October 30, 2006, 03:43:56 PM
What kind of load balancing do you want to do?  Are you running it as a web/game server?  To be honest, load balancing/QoS is best left to a dedicated router.  You could turn this PC into a router, but if that's really what you want to do with it, I would recommend using one of the router-specialist Linux distributions.
Title: Re: Windows XP Load Balancing?
Post by: viking on October 31, 2006, 01:06:50 AM
It does not matter what type of load balancing... Someone asked me, for he wants to use more connections to network at once. I am not able to respond his question. And I am not able to find the necessary information to respond to his question.
As example, let's say he has 2 connections of 256 kbps and he wants to merge these two bandwitdths. If he connects to 2 web servers, if he downloads from many servers, if he wants to do something else, I don't know, I didn't ask. But, his question (and now also mine): it is possible to do load balancing with Windows XP? I never read (until now) something about Windows XP and Load Balancing, neither affirmative, neither negative. So I don't know where to look any more.
But I'm searching :) And, I don't know why, I think I will not find the answer from microsoft pages. Maybe from some Linux users... But I doubt that from Microsoft. They have Windows servers to sell ;)
Title: Re: Windows XP Load Balancing?
Post by: Rob Pomeroy on October 31, 2006, 03:08:01 AM
Possibly somone somewhere has created an application to do this in Windows XP, but heck - why would they want to?  XP is not a server O/S, not optimised for advanced routing and simply the wrong tool for this job.  Next you'll be asking how to set up XP to run air traffic control.  ;)

I haven't found anything suitable, but that's not particularly surprising.  :)