We recently made the change to Windows 7 64-bit and initially enjoyed the new feature set.  Overall, it is significantly more complex in a lot of areas that will take some time to get used to and figure out.  Everything was going smooth until we attempted to launch applications that utilize network traffic.  In doing so, we found that our ping was great 30-50ms, our bandwidth was exactly what it should be, but the latency was horrific.  It skyrocketted to an average of a very unacceptable 500ms.

Initially we thought this might be a driver problem (and it still might ultimately be) given the RealTek NIC that is built into the motherboard.  After hours of troubleshooting and performing steps suggested in other articles related to how to improve your network speed on windows 7 (all of which failed by the way), we finally came up with a workaround.

WARNING: This solution is certainly not permanent and not a good one if you value security, which you should, so use this at your own risk.  We are not responsible for anything you do related to the information provided below.  This is information given freely and worked for us, that does not mean it will necessarily work for you.

That said, we isolated the problem to an issue arsing from the BFE service (Base Filtering Engine).  This service controls some other things on the system like IPSec.  Whenever we stop this service, our latency returns to normal and network operations are as fast as can be.  You can find this service by either opening Services under Administration Tools or by Right-clicking on Computer and choosing Manage, this will bring up a management console, then expand Services and Applications then Services find Base Filtering Engine in the list, Right-click and choose Stop.  This will ask you to stop 2 additional services, click Yes and then attempt your network access again.  Chances are everything will be flying high once again.

If anyone has any information regarding this problem or a better solution for it that doesn't compromise security, please let us know by e-mail and we will post it with credit to you.