Resuming stuck downloads in the Microsoft File Transfer Manager

Posted on Sunday 11 January 2009Tuesday 18 September 2012 By Mark Wilson

This content is 15 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

The chances are that if you’ve been reading this blog then, by now, you’ve had a go at downloading the Windows 7 beta. If, like me, you used Microsoft Connect to get your copy, then you’ve been using the Microsoft File Transfer Manager (FTM) to download the software and, in my experience, sometimes this gets stuck. In my case, after downloading 8GB of software (I have multiple build variants to test – and now I’m waiting to see if my ISP invokes it’s fair use policy…), it stuck with 30MB to go.

It might be useful to note that when this happens there is a workaround – sometimes just suspending and resuming the download will do the trick – other times the suspend doesn’t seem to work either. In that case, exit the File Transfer Manager, then attempt to download something else (starting a new instance of the FTM). If you want to keep the new download then let it run it’s course but, if not, you can cancel it (you only needed to download something to access a new instance of FTM) – either way you should be able to resume the stuck download.

7 thoughts on “Resuming stuck downloads in the Microsoft File Transfer Manager”

Chris G says:

Friday 30 January 2009 at 15:07

Thanks so much for this trick (starting and killing a new download). After a 4GB download of VS 2008 froze on me with 4.3 MB remaining yesterday I was about to throw my laptop out the window!
Anonymous says:

Wednesday 4 February 2009 at 6:37

wow..it worked to me.. ..

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exit the File Transfer Manager, then attempt to download something else (starting a new instance of the FTM)
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Ricardo says:

Thursday 16 April 2009 at 22:27

Thanks for the tip. It worked!!
(I just had to download not one, but three other files in order to “wake up” the hung transfer again).
Mark Wilson says:

Friday 1 May 2009 at 23:06
You can launch FTM manually too (i.e. without starting a new download):
1. Open a Command Prompt window
2. Change directory to %SystemRoot%\Downloaded Program Files\
3. Type transfermgr.exe
Nick says:

Tuesday 29 September 2009 at 4:37

Thanks so much, I’ve been trying to get Visual Studio the past 3 days from MSDN and didn’t even realise you got a download manager when using IE (firefox just downloads the file directly). I finally started using the FTM and got stuck in ‘suspending’ after 2gb. Restarting the FTM manually worked perfectly.
Larry says:

Sunday 20 December 2009 at 15:32

This helpful trick still works…thanks for taking the time to post it.
Surendra says:

Wednesday 5 January 2011 at 19:20

Thanks for your tip. It worked for me!