Networks

Ask something
Question Locked

Server 2003 network shares slow under XP

0 helpful
28 replies

by scott 2 views

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

We are converting our network over from Novel to Windows 2003 and have come up with a problem when it comes to the network shares.

When you open a network folder from a XP workstation, either using the name (//server/folder) or a mapped drive, there is a 15-20 second delay. This only occurs the first time you open the share, or if it has been more than 15 minutes since the last time you access it.

It is not a server or network load problem, we planned for extensive expansion and have never reached 10% of the systems capacity.

We still have our old Novel server on the network (don't want to move the user files until this access problem is solved), and if you browse the novel drives their contents come up immediately.

It does not look like a server-side problem as the Win2K clients that are still on the network can access the server 2003 shares immediately.

I have tried several of the solutions I have been able to locate so far, including:
Turning off the Computer Browser on the XP Workstations
Clearing out My Network Places
Disabling the SMB OpLocks (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRxSmb\Parameters)
Removing the Scheduled Tasks check on remote access (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace)

I'm kinda at the end of my rope here...

28 replies

by rvann

We've got the same issue here, and it sounds like a very similar environment. Our just started a couple of weeks ago. We're in the process of migrating off of Novell completely. We just rolled SMS 2003 agent to all our boxes. ZEN agent hasn't yet been removed.

Let me know if you've found a solution to this or have more info.

by scott

Further testing has shown this is an issue only when using the Universal Name of the server.

When accessing the drives directly using the IP address of the 2003 server the delay is only around 4 seconds, vs 20 seconds using the universal name. Again, the Novel server does not have this problem when accessed under the UNC.

We have tried adding a WINS server to the network and correctly changed the settings on the DHCP and router, but this did not correct the problem.

So, this delay is restricted to Windows XP clients accessing network shares on a 2003 server under the UNC name.

by rvann

I'll have to do some testing tomorrow and see if using the IP is faster than UNC. Initial tests suggest that might be true here as well.

I just checked our core switch router and it's running at 7%...

by shaun.g

I have teh same issue with a win xp home pc accessing a win2k sever box.

by matteustace

Your problem is probably DNS related.

XP uses DNS to resolve the names of machines, and turn them into IPs. If they can't work it out through DNS, they then go on to things like WINS.

This is why you get a delay at first, and then it knows the IP. It also explains why using the IP to start with produces no delay.

If you have a local DNS server, it sounds like it is not set up properly.

If you don't, then your Win2k server can act as one. You need the DNS server's IP to be sent out with DHCP.

by rvann

Ping using hostname resolves without delays. My workstation was having the problem; it's configured with 4 DNS servers.

What IS interesting is that when I remove the Novell client and ZENworks client (I think it's the removal of the Novell client that makes the difference) the problem goes away and accessing mapped drives and shares via UNC is lightening fast.

We've been retiring Netware servers recently because we're moving users' home folders and network storage to Windows servers.

We now only have 4 Netware boxes which remain. But we haven't yet removed the Novell clients which means users are still authenticating to eDirectory.

I have written a script that will remove Novell client and ZEN agents, and we plan to push that out within the next week or so.

I just found a KB document on Microsoft's web site that you might find interesting:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171386

by matteustace

Maybe your workstation is trying to look for netware servers first.

Have you tried going into Network Connections, Advanced, Advanced Settings and moving TCP/IP to the top of the list of services bound to your network adaptor?

by drendon

i am currently experiencing the same scenario with one of my servers... this is my 4th server installation in a short period of time at different locations and i cant seem to find an answer to this problem. ONE major difference 3 of the servers are Win 2003 STANDARD edition(they are working OK) and the 4th one is Win 2003 ENTERPRISE. those of you that are having this issue, what OS are you using? could this have anything to do with this issue?

by dlopiccolo

Hi I am curious if any of you have found a solution to this? In my case we are accessing a mapped share on a WIn 2003 Iomega Nas. Strictly a windows network. I have one laptop that has no slow down accessing the share on the NAS. Most machines hang 20 seconds. PC's, laptops some gig nic some 100MB. All XP pro SP2. Even rebuilt 2 machines from scratch and installed only office and Win. Slow down seemed to happen when we added a new AD server 2003, old one still on line was 2000. Slow share is not on the AD servers, NAS only stores files.

by sivadba2006

I am also searching solutions for this kind of problems. I have win 2003 Enterprises. as per my experiement, this is not with Server. Because this is only problem of XP Prof.edition. Now only i linked with server, but i facing this problem before the setup of server. Hope that this is not Server Issue.. this is CLEAR bugs of XP Prof., if anyone got solutions please share with me also.

Regards
Siva Kumar
India.

by why me worry?

Also, it could that the Netware client on the XP machine is causing the problem if it's still installed. Try a machine without the Netware client and see if you have the same problem mapping a drive.

by rvann

We are running Netware 6.5 and our file servers are a mix of Windows 2003 Standard and Enterprise. I don't beleive we forward IPX across subnets, it's all TCP/IP.

by why me worry?

Try uninstalling the Netware client as I suggested and see if the problem persists. Also, make sure your DNS settings on the XP machine are set correctly to point to your domain controllers, which should have AD integrated DNS roles.

by sgt_shultz

guys there are plenty of known issues that can cause this problem. i haven't read all your comments. here are mine:
update windows server and client to latest service pack and windows updates.
look in the event viewer on the server and the client demonstrating the problem
try it in safe mode with networking
search support.microsoft.com some suggested keywords 'slow save network'

by why me worry?

He never indicated the version of Netware, as Netware 5.x, 6.x and up all have native TCP/IP support for the NCP (Netware core protocol) packets, so changing the binding order won't help if IPX/SPX isn't even being used on the Network. Also, Novell is not an OS, it is a company, and Netware is the OS. The two are improperly used interchangeably and causes a lot of confusion and ambiguity.

by dvanderbilt

I'm having the same problem with our Windows 2003 Server (running SP2), but we don't have a Novell server on our network. It is slow to access network shares with at least 20 second delay upon trying to open folder or file in a network share. If you've opened a folder in the last few minutes, it comes right up without delay when you open again. Also tried opening with IP address instead of using server name and got the same delay. It just started doing this over the last 2-3 days.

by vic9

I just added a 2003 file server and the problem I have is even stranger. Files open and copy speeds are fine but save is slow. Certain applications such as Ventura MAS90 are slow

I have a Ventura file and when I open and then save it to the network share it is extremely slow 3 minutes. To copy the same file back and forth is about 5 seconds. Strangely enough as last experiment I did a File Save As and it was done in 10 seconds.

I have removed IPX from the XP machine - mapped the shared drive using the servers IP (bypass DNS). Added removed and added Active directory on this server - no help

The server is running 2003 SP2 Client XP Pro. The server is running 4 SAS drives in RAID 10. All I did was replace an 8 year old NT 4 server which worked fine but hardware was falling apart. The rest of the network is 2003 with a PDC

by midspeck

Hello, I saw a similar problem once when running in a mixed Samba/NetWare/Windows environment. Although the problem showed up on the Samba machines rather than the NetWare shares.

We actually had a problem with the first access to -any- file. Not just getting connected to the shares.

Here's what fixed it for us and I'm curious if it'll work for you:
Control Panel | Network Connections | Advanced | Advanced Settings... | Provider Order
We made sure the the Microsoft Windows Network was listed first (above the Netware stuff). Netware didn't really seem to care about this -- it still functioned at full speed, but it let us access our files more quickly.

Hopefully this works for someone out there.

by sda970

Be careful playing with the Provider Order as it is a good way to Blue Screen if you have other things here such as modules for Cisco Wireless etc.

Anyway, check out the following settings in the Advanced Tab in Novell client.

"Names Resolution Timeout"
"Wait before giving up on DA"

From memory these are set highish, 10 seconds or so by default but it could be higher.

Drop them down to 1 second for a test and in my case I saw an immediate change.

I think it is the "Wait before giving up on DA" that changes things here with the delay on opening a Windows share so try that one first.

Of course....test test test :)

by indran

I'm running Small business server.. I use Telnet connecting to my Ip.Address but if I leave telnet unattended when i go back to use it it has a delay before working

Pls Try to Help

by vleon

We are having the same problem. Did anyone resolve the issue

by dcc

I'm interested in this as well. Browsing files on our Win2k server is almost instantaneous even on directories with thousands of files. Browsing any XP Pro machine results in several seconds of waiting, and several more seconds of the "Flashlight" waiving. I was trying to use an XP Pro machine as a file server, but it's too slow right now. Applications that access the directories multiple times are really bogged down. I've tried most of the suggestions here, and still have the problem.

by ehhhh

Remove all drivemappings from out the tree entries in your registry.

Look for the "recent" folder on your client and delete all files.

Look for Olk*** in your temp dir and delete al content

now tell me If the problem persist

by gberas

If you have an Novell Client installed on your XP maschine and you are traing to browse a share that is not a netware share the clien tries to find the server name in the Netware network. Try to set the "Bad Name Cache Enabled" to Enable and the "Bad Name Cache Timeout" to 0. The edit the registry and add a new REG_MULTI_SZ value to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation\Parameters
name it BadServer. In the value data type in each line the names of your windows servers.

by djmentat

I had to sign up for the forum to post a reply for this one.

I built a parallel Server 2003 Standard AD network alongside of an already existing Netware 6.5 Network and then moved everyone over to AD leaving only the GroupWise 7 Email Cluster running on Novell. Everything worked great except for the issue contained in this thread. My file/print server is a PowerVault NF500 NAS with 4G RAM, Gigabit Ethernet and SAS HDs. I use a logon VBS to map all the network drives and printers. The script would take longer than expected to run and the first time you'd access a mapped drive it would take 10-20 seconds to open the drive, then all subsequent access to the same server would be fast. After about a 10 minute window of activity the first time you'd try to access a mapped drive you would have to wait again.

I tried every troubleshooting suggestion in this thread. Deleting all the entries in My Network Places, Moving the order of preferred networks to have Microsoft Windows Network on the top, Changing the time out's on the novell client to 1 second, and setting the "Bad Name Cache Enabled". The problem still existed.

While troubleshooting I happened to clear all the logs on my Backup DC and rebooted. I found an Error Event in the Application Log for Auto Enrollment that stated: "Automatic Certificate Enrollment for local system failed to enroll for one Domain Controller Certificate (0x80070005). Access Denied." I found an article stating that all Domain Controllers should be a member of the CERTSVC_DCOM_ACCESS Group, and proceeded to add the Domain Controllers Group as a member. I cleared the logs and rebooted to find a successful Auto Enrollment Event and every network problem I had with slow script processing, slow DNS resolution, and the wait times for mapped drives vanished. Now the network is just as fast as it should be and life is good.

by dcc

MTU must be set to the same value on all machines. I've been round and round with this... This utility really did the trick for me. Really all that I have changed is MTU value, but I did run the optimizer on all workstations.

http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

by will.causton

Hi ,

We had the exact same scenario, migrating away from Netware 6.5 to Cifs Shares on a Netapp Filer with NTFS/AD permissions. Desktops with Novell Client 4.91 SP3 for Windows had a huge lag on initial access to a mapped drive (mapped using a "net use" log on script applied from a ADS GPO)" thereafter its fine.

We tried everything in the above list, some of which helped a little some of which helped a lot. We eventually found that all the following changes were required to the desktops.

We changed the provider order under Control Panel | Network Connections | Advanced | Advanced Settings... |Provider Order so that Microsoft Windows Network was listed first.

And changed the following settings in the Advanced Tab in Novell client.
"Names Resolution Timeout" 1
"Wait before giving up on DA" 1
UNC Path Filter -OFF

Reboot...

We would not have got to the fix (so quickly) without the help of this thread. thanks Community !

To the Gentleman/Lady with the Domain Controller Group membership auto enrolment error, special thanks for that post, we had that too and fixing it solved a completly unrelated long standing problem that had mystified us for a while, but it did nothing for this fix. I'd guess that once you fixed it performance on your DC's leapt up or the load became balanced accross multiple servers.

This discussion is closed to new replies.