Optimizing uTorrent

While I'm still figuring out for this week's theme on Photo Hunt after one week of severe sickness, let's have some fun in tweaking uTorrent.

Please note that the following guide are solely reference and credited to bootstrike.com which gave quite a relevant information in helping you to tweak your Bittorrent client, with zero-knowledge required.

Of course, you may try to tweak it with any other clients, but in this case I will use uTorrent as first preference as it is lightweight, and perform better compared to any others.
The Guide (For Windows Vista ONLY, as it has been proven to be working)
1) Before we get started, check your connection speed at Speedtest.net to determine your maximum download and upload speed. And download a copy of uTorrent here.

2) Initially, Windows Vista limits the number of half-open connections to only 10. This can well affect your bittorrent speed. To allow more concurrent half-open connections, you need to first patch the system TCPIP file, namely TCPIP.sys, but this is optional as some people find it to be least help or efficient to their bittorrent speed.

3) To patch the TCPIP.sys, please get the file directly from here:

• Windows Vista user, click here.
• Once downloaded, extract the zip file to your desktop.
• Run the Half-open_limit_fix_2.3.exe file
• Choose English

• Under "New Value", set it to 100.
• Click "Add to tcpip.sys".
• Click OK twice.
  
• Restart your computer once you're done.
• If something is not working right, kindly run this file again and "Restore original file".

After you have done the above steps, try to download with a simple torrent file to check the download speed before we proceed further.

Next,

4) Enabling Protocol Encryption and Increasing Speed Via Max Half Open Connections

• Go to uTorrent "Preference".
• Click on "Bittorrent".
• Under Protocol Encryption, Set the "Outgoing" to Enabled.

• If you have done the 3rd step, which patched the TCPIP.sys file. You can follow by changing the value of "net.max_halfopen" under "Advanced" tab.
• Set the value to 50.
• Click OK.

• Stop the current running torrent, and resume downloading after 10 seconds. Observe the download speed to see if there's any difference, I have mine increase tremendously, this is how my result looks like (DL: 80.1kbps / UL:25.1kbps):

Next,

5) Add in multiple trackers from multiple sources. The easiest way to find trackers is to go to Isohunt and search for a particular torrent, they will list down all the trackers from multiple sources for you.

Here's an example of tracker list from Isohunt:


Cut and paste them into tracker list in uTorrent as below:


You will see a tremendous increase in downloading speed as well.

Special thanks to bootstrike.com for providing the guide.

H e n r i c k
Optimizing uTorrent