Generals was one of our favorite LAN games. It seemed that as time went on this problem got worse and worse somehow, to the point where we gave up trying to play it at all. I have fresh hope again that this might one day be fixed!
when generals was released it was the same time my high-school were encouraging everyone enrolled in specific classes to get laptops as part of a pilot program (with some of the money coming from the government). I started bringing a network switch to school so we could play during free periods/lunch (the wifi was problematic).