Why is the windows routing table huge?

Question

This is a bit of a pointed question, but begs being asked: Why is the windows routing table abnormally large?

Go to a command prompt, and type "route print". You'll probably get >3 entries, even for a simple home-network setup. Why? Typically, and Linux machine on the same network will have only 3 entires:

• Loopback
• That network, usually something like 192.168.1.0/24, but not always
• A default route

Windows, on the same network, never seems to have the same routing table, and typically has a ton of entries. Why? The three that Linux is using are all you need.

Answer 1

That's because Windows gives the full pedantic routing table, rather than just the bits people are interested in. The Windows table includes routes for:

• The local IP address, including Localhost
• The multicast network on each interface, including Localhost
• Subnet routes for the local-host network

These are all routes that Linux cares about too, but the designers of '/sbin/route' felt were too obvious to bother outputting. Microsoft thought otherwise. That's all it is.