Slow opening files in Windows 2003

[JPCPB]

Greetings,

We're experiencing a minor irritation in Windows 2003 - when anyone double-clicks on a data file (MS Office, Adobe PDF, Notepad TXT, etc.) it takes 15-30 seconds to open.

Even from local admin!

We've logged a call with MS and they've sent various hotfixes which we've installed without success. They're still working on it.

What I wondered is this:

Is there any way to monitor what happens when we double-click on a file to open it?

We've discovered by using NetMon that Windows is trying to access two old, now non-existent servers somewhere on our network - where is it getting these from??

We can't find them in AD and their not in ethe Windows "path".

The daft thing is this - if we "add" these non-existent servers back in, Windows opens the data files quickly without any problems(!?)

We hope that by following what happens in double-clicking a file that we can find out from where it's getting the incorrect list of servers.

Any suggestios as to how to find out this information will be welcomed!

Kindest regards,

James

 

[techsupportgirl]

JP,

Is this just happening on one computer that is running Windows 2003 or all Windows 2003 computers that access all these same data files?

If it's the former I'd say these non-existent servers are in the registry of that machine somewhere and it's referencing that. I don't know for sure, this is just a guess.

If all computers are doing it, then my question would be were all these computers connected to these old servers at one point? If so and these references are in the registry somewhere, then this problem would exist on all the computers since they all accessed the same servers and had to have mapped drives or login scripts attached to them.

I'd also check to make sure any mapped drives to these old servers are disconnected. If not, disconnect them.

Maybe check the HOSTS file?

I did a check of my Win23k servers and found my server names all over the place.

One interesting key was under

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-2550837614-84722746-2477240140-1121\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComputerDescriptions

I'd be interested in seeing what someone else in the forum has to say about this. I could be troubleshooting this wrong but I didn't want to leave you hanging out there without any suggestions

As for monitoring what happens after you double click, I have no idea. Maybe someone with programming experience could assist?

Hope you fix this!

 

[Spiggsy]

The slow opening files that you mention, were they all stored on the removed servers, and does it affect files that have been created solely on the new server ?
Also, I'm curious as to the initil server roles, and their removal. FOr instance was there a DC that was simply unplugged, or was it demoted first.

 

[JPCPB]

Greetings,

TechSupportGirl/Spiggsy
Thank you both for your replies!

Perhaps I should explain further.

We have a couple of Terminal Servers connected to the PDC (2003). Both were Windows 2000 originally, one of them has been upgraded to 2003.

The problem only occurs on the 2003 one - the 2000 TS is fine.

The SA checked through the registry and found one entry for the non-existent server, which he removed. There is nothing in the path. We've also deleted all the dud mappings which individuals had left on their shares.

I'd be interested to see if that registry key was the same as the one in which the SA found the dud reference. Also, I'm not sure if he checked the Hosts.

It's almost as if it's checking the "old" servers before the "new" ones because they're in a list/path of places to look - where it has this list is anybody's guess at present!

Kindest regards,

James

 

[JPCPB]

Greetings,

Thank you again for your replies!

Just a further update...

The SA says that the server was unplugged then demoted.

We've checked the key you mentioned, TSG, but there was nothing relevant.

He has sorted out a work-around - he's added in the two "ghost" servers with a loopback; it works but obviously it shouldn't be necessary!

He'd disabled DNS so that the system wouldn't look for them by name - but it might well be doing so by IP and not necessarily decimal. Maybe it's encoded in a DLL somewhere?? Who knows! (He'd checked through the registry for the IP addresses to no avail.)

I was wondering was there an existing script to monitor given IP addresses? It's the only way I can think of to find out what's looking for/pinging/accessing these two servers.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[ajaac]

You may want to check out the following link, it has to do with recent document history list.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=9196

Please let us know if it helps.

 

[xmsre]

It's likely stale entries in the MRU list. Turning of the MRU list, however, may not be the best alternative:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;284896

You may want to experiment with altering the size of the MRU list instead:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307949