Windows 7 as a file server

Sometimes you want a dedicated computer or file server but you don’t need a full blown server OS. For a simple storage or file sharing system, Windows 7 pro might just work fine. But by default, Windows 7 will limit the amount of open concurrent connections. After a handful users connect to the device, it will start rejecting new connections. You might start seeing errors in the event log that look like this.

Event ID:2017
Event Source: srv
"The server was unable to allocate from the system nonpaged pool because the server reached the configured limit for nonpaged pool allocations."

What does this mean? It means you need to spend $4000 on a real server.
:)
Actually you just need to make 2 registry changes and then reboot Windows.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache

Change the key to ‘1’ to allow large system cache

Then

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size

And set it to ‘3’

That should stop those errors from popping up and allow more connections to the workstation.