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Why is XP slower accessing the network?

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by pbtoms

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We are slowly upgrading our computers. Buying much faster machines, with Windows XP. We have a Win2K server. The users with XP are complaining that it is slower. When they open and/or save files in the shared documents folder on the server, it takes several seconds to open, and several seconds to save. With Win95/98, it was almost instantaneous. The machines are set to use the Server for DNS. Any idea why the access is so much slower? Any advice would be appreciated, since they're getting ready to lynch me for recommending this "upgrade" that has slowed them down!

5 replies

by alpha-male

I have a few suggestions and ideas...

First the obvious, make sure you are configured properly, have no extraneous protocols installed, are using the newest drivers, etc. Also, Disable Indexing and use mapped drives for shares whenever possible.
When you connect to another machine, XP checks for any Scheduled tasks on that computer which can add up to 30 seconds of waiting. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to disable this process. First, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace in the Registry. Below that, there should be a key called {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. Just delete this, and after a restart, Windows will no longer check for scheduled tasks.

Here is a good link with helpful information about troubleshooting:

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/troubleshoot/

Good luck....hope this helps!

by quintar51

What protocols are you using on your network?
You can get by with only TCP/IP on each computer. The more protocols you use, the slower the performance.

You can also try editing the hosts file, for testing purposes. Try it on one machine first.

the hosts file is located in c:\%systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc directory. Right-click on it and open it using notepad.

type in the DNS server address, followed by a tab, then the fully qualified domain name.

Example,

192.168.0.2 dns.mydomain.com

Then save the file. See if that speeds things up. If it does speed things up, take a look at your DNS server. Have clients type 'ipconfig /flushdns' and 'ipconfig /registerdns'.

Also, if you're using DHCP, have clients release and renew the address. 'ipconfig /release' and 'ipconfig /renew'.

good luck,

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