For proper functioning of the Alacritech SNP aware TCP offload driver on windows XP x64, the Windows Firewall/Connection Sharing service must be disabled. Note that disabling the firewall/connection sharing service in any manner other than the one described here will not work. TCP traffic will not be offloaded unless the firewall service is stopped and disable from the services panel.

Open the services menu of the computer management mmc and double click the Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing service.

Stop and disable the service.

Existing connection that are availble to be offloaded will nw be offloaded, but they may not perform as expected in terms of performance until after the system is rebooted.

Use netstat -nat to verify that you now have some connections offloaded. Note that depending on the nature of the connection, not all TCP connections will be offloaded, but any connection that does high throughput should be.