Bandwidth control in Windows XP and P2P apps

[FSAA]

I have a small network with the Internet link shared using Windows XP's ICS
and a switch. Lately some users started using P2P apps and before you know
it all the bandwidth to the Internet has been taken up. Banning P2P and have
some form of use policy is not an option due to "office politics"
I wish to archive one of the following two with minimal budget:

1. Use packet filter on the ICS gateway computer and drop all P2P related
packets.
Or
2. Use hardware (switch) or software based bandwidth throttling to allocated
only a set amount of bandwidth to a particular IP address or port on the
switch (e.g. 56Kbs etc)
Freeware or cheaper software/hardware is preferred. I am willing to upgrade
to a switch with the desired function but not spending the whole year's
budget on a CISO switch.
I am well aware that they can be implemented using Linux iptable or FreeBSD
ipfw but I do not think switching the gateway to Linux is workable at the
moment
Any suggestions are welcomed, thanks (sorry for the X-post)

FSAA

 

[Conor]

I am well aware that they can be implemented using Linux iptable or FreeBSD
ipfw but I do not think switching the gateway to Linux is workable at the
moment

Why? Get spare old PC, stick in a LiveCD version.

 

[Rich]

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Forget the program name but on www.betanews.com this week there was a
mention of a new program which you install on the main network
gateway and can limit the bandwidth of each IP number. Works in
windows.

Of course they can still use p2p software but at least you can
control the speed and the rest of the network will not grind to a
halt. Theres also no need to install it on each client, so one
install does the business. Not tested it myself but sounds good.

Thanks.

Rich

I have a small network with the Internet link shared using Windows
XP's ICS and a switch. Lately some users started using P2P apps and
before you know it all the bandwidth to the Internet has been taken
up. Banning P2P and have some form of use policy is not an option
due to "office politics"
I wish to archive one of the following two with minimal budget:

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=plzJ
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[FSAA]

Thanks for your input,

I did a search on betanews and the program is called bandwidth controller,
it does exactly what I want (but from the user feedbacks it seems to have
the side effect of crashing windoze because it hacks into low level windows
code)

I am also looking at using Windows server 2003 with ISA server to do the
job, although I will need to convince management the benefits of buying a
new OS.