Microsoft KB Archive/237443

= MultinetGetConnectionPerformance May Not Return Expected Results =

Article ID: 237443

Article Last Modified on 9/30/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

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This article was previously published under Q237443



SUMMARY
The MultinetGetConnectionPerformance function contained in the Win32 Application Programming Interface (API) is designed to return an estimate of throughput, when using a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) or redirected driver letter as a parameter.

The MultinetGetConnectionPerformance function relies on the transport provider to provide this metric. The specific implementation of the measurement algorithm is protocol specific.



MORE INFORMATION
This API returns a more reliable measurement for all protocols after data is transmitted through the connection. To assure realistic measurements of the connection's throughput, approximately 64 KB of data is passed before measurement. However, the measurement is only an approximation of the current throughput. The measurement is dependent on the transport provider, which is dependent on the network adapter card driver, so the accuracy of the metric varies with the installed protocols and network cards.

TCP/IP uses a method of calculating the throughput based on the number of bytes transmitted on the connection. If the total number of bytes transmitted is relatively small when compared to the elapsed time of the established connection, it returns the default speed of the media, which is obtained from the network adapter card driver. In the case of Ethernet, this value is usually 10,000,000 bytes, but it is driver specific. This behavior can cause unexpected results returned from measuring an inactive connection over TCP/IP. By passing about 64 KB of data across the connection, the measurement is generally within the expected range, rather than the default media speed.

