Downloading from MSDN (BizSpark)

file-transfermsdn

My company has recently signed up for the subscription – now when I download with Microsoft File Transfer Manager – it does not work; gets held after downloading about 1GB etc .. and sometimes it keeps on saying "trying to connect". I have to clear cookies and cache to make it work. And then again; it gets stalled after downloading 1GB – though new downloads works fine.

Firefox is not allowing pause and resume. Chrome, after downloading random number of MB's says file size does not match etc…

Bit Torrent people have developed more stable transfer protocols – why can't MSFT ppl learn from them and upgrade their stupid File transfer manager?

Question: What do you use to download?

Best Answer

I called BizSpark support about this problem, myself. Not sure if you're based in the UK, but the guy on the phone said they'd just fixed a problem they'd had with their UK servers last week, so maybe things will be better now.

He also suggested the following workaround/"fix" (valid wherever you are):

  1. Only ever use Internet Explorer to download from BizSpark (*sigh*)
  2. In Microsoft File Transfer Manager click on Options. Then click on Connections and make sure that HTTPS is UNticked.

He said this cleared up problems for a lot of people and sped up transfer rates.

This all worked for me, so hopefully it will work for you. (Remember to double check the hashes of the files you download -- a corrupt .iso can cause all kinds of weird and wonderful problems.)

I also discovered that the UK support number on their website is wrong (yay, Microsoft), use the MSDN team number on 0800 051 7215.

Hope that helps!

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