SLOW access to only one of my file servers

[Fatboy0341]

I'm testing some Vista machines on our Domain (not very impressed with Vista at all - I'm convinced Vista is just a stepping stone to a 2009 release much like Windows ME was supposed to be).

Anyway - access to most file servers is fine with the exception of one of them. It's a 2003 server acting only as a file server. It literally takes 3-4 minutes to open up any shares on that server. Access from Windows XP Pro machines is lightning quick - we have an entire division on that server (home drives and departmental shares) and never have any issues. This problem is not limited to one Vista machine either - all 5 Vista boxes we are testing have the same issue. They all have 1 GB RAM and are brand new. No bloatware or anything like that - just Vista, Sophos AV and Office 2003.

The shares do eventually open but you can't do anything because it just locks up. Copying the Office 2003 install folder to an XP machine over the network took 35 minutes. On the Vista machines - 17 hours.

I can;t stress enough how flawless this file server runs with XP machines as clients...so I'm thinking there is something silly going on with these Vista workstations...but again - tehy have no issues with other file servers.

Any ideas?


"He who laughs last probably made a backup. He who laughs loudest probably hasn't checked his backups in a while."

 

[linney]

Troubleshoot network and Internet connection problems

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/33307acf-0698-41ba-b014-ea0a2eb8d0a81033.mspx

Windows Vista Networking

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905087.aspx

Vista and HTTP Browsing Problems
thread1583-1360764

vista - terrastation
thread1583-1362143

File and Printer Sharing in Windows Vista

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/network/evaluate/vista_fp.mspx

 

[Fatboy0341]

Thanks linney. Here's the issue and the fix:

I found some references, about how Vista has a new feature “Autotuning for TCP Connections”. Of course, sometimes these things don’t work as intended.

This tells it to tune individual connections initiated by a client for best performance and efficiency. But it hurts when we try to connect to one of our newer servers.

The fix was to issue this command at the command prompt as administrator of the machine:

Netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled

There is a registry fix for the server that negates the need for this command on a Vista workstation, but for now I'm not changing anything on our servers.

Thanks for the heads up linney - much appreciated.

JB

PS - I am not a fan of Vista. In my opinion, Microsoft will probably release something in 2009 and Vista will end up being a stepping stone from XP to that OS...kind of like ME was from 98se to 2000 Pro.





"He who laughs last probably made a backup. He who laughs loudest probably hasn't checked his backups in a while."