Quality of Service on Windows

Question

I find that whenever my bittorrent client is running, all other communication slows down extremely - this is because of the ACKs taking up all the upload bandwidth.

Can I configure Windows or install a 3rd party application so that the packets of all other applications take precedence over bittorrent's packets?

Updates:

1. I'm interested in solutions for Windows 7
2. Limiting the bandwidth is not good - I want maximum bandwidth when I'm not using the computer, and maximum responsiveness when I am.

Answer 1

There is an app that is supposed to do this called CFosSpeed. I've tried it in the past when using an adsl connection and it improved my experience somewhat.

Other than that limiting your upload speed in bittorrent to something like 70-80% of your max upload usually solves the problem as well.

Answer 2

Quality of Service is built-in in most Windows-versions including an enhanced version in Windows 7. However, the concept is still to reserve bandwidth for prioritized packets - not to adjust bandwidth so I figure that's not what you want to do. Otherwise, here's how you configure it in Vista which would be similar to Windows 7.

uTorrent has an excellent setup guide that needs to be followed to the letter to get a responsive experience overall. Here's a forum thread with some more conservative settings as well.

If your NAT-device ("router") supports at least port-based priority you could use that, otherwise you could either set up a proxy like Squid or install an application that will help you. Most good ones aren't free though. Here's a cheap untested example.

Answer 3

You need some sort of proxy application. squid will be a good choice. And it's free. There is SafeSquid based on squid with more friendly user interface.

Answer 4

Why not just limit the max bandwidth for downloads in the bittorrent app? Almost all of them have this feature and it is much easier than any other solution you'll get.