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word slow over pptp vpn

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by boardswapper 1 view

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I have 4 users at an office across town that connect via a win 2000 vpn set up on our server.They are using both xppro and win 2000 pro.When they trying to open a word document or save a word document or type in a word document is like watching paint dry. As far as I can tell all the settings in rras are corect. Terminal services seems to work fine. Ive looked all over for a solution nothing seems to chane things. Any help would be much appreciated.

6 replies

by softcorp.us

Hello...

Do I understand your situation correctly? Your users are running MS Word on a server via Terminal Services and the network connection is PPTP VPN?

The limiting factor is going to be the speed of the network connection. For best performance, you will want a high-speed symmetrical network connection (no cable modem high-speed download, low-speed upload). VPN slows the connection down by about 50%. Using a GUI application via Terminal Services means all screen painting occurs across the secure but slow network connection. I would expect unsatisfactory performance for this configuration.

Recommendations:

1. Install the MS Office applications locally on each client PC wherever they are.

2. Instruct your users that working on documents resident on the server across the WAN and VPN tunnel is going to be slow. For best performance, they need to work on document files locally and copy them to the server once when done.

3. Install the highest speed network connection between the locations that you can justify.

Does this help?

-----Steve Jackson

CEO/CSA
Software Corporation (Softcorp)
http://www.softcorp.us/probono
Advanced pro bono tools and utilities free for personal use

by softcorp.us

Comment about your comment...

I think my answer is essentially the same, but I have a question (below). VPN is a good thing but introduces overhead. An operation that makes the user wait for network communication over a VPN link is likely to be unsatisfactory. For example, if interactive editing over a VPN connection is too slow, move that editing to the client so the editing is not limited by the network.

Regarding: "The users that use the VPN find the connection very slow using the vpn to change and save word documents."

Question: Are these users running MS Word on the client PC and saving across the VPN to the server? Or, are they running MS Word on the server via Terminal Services across the VPN?

Without additional info, I'm still thinking these users should be editing locally on the client and transferring files across the network afterward when they don't have to wait.

by boardswapper

I'm sorry, I didnt make myself very clear. I have some users using Terminal services.That works fine, printing and all, fast. Due to a program that will only print over a vpn. The users that use the VPN find the connection very slow using the vpn to change and save word documents. I think your answer would be basically the same? Please let me know if this changes your answer. Any additional suggestions you could make would be appreciated

by boardswapper

Thank you I used your suggestion,Have everyone working on Terminal services seems to work ok.They still use vpn for cut and paste operations which is limited. everybody is happy so I am happy.

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