w2k terminal services -> slow app launch

[RayF]

Hi all,

I'm using w2k terminal services (in administrative mode) to remotely administer the server. This works great except for one thing: When starting a program within a terminal session it takes 10 seconds to sometimes 2 minutes before the program actually starts ! Doesn't matter if it's a large or small program. Although I can see that the process has started in taskmanager the program doesn't "show" itself voor some time.

When I reboot the server, initiate a terminal session and start a program this program will start immidiately (like it should). So what happens is that over time (i think several days of uptime but haven't narrowed it down yet) the startup time of programs wil take longer and longer.

The box is a quad-processor server with 2Gb of RAM and a RAID array with 10k RPM ultra2-SCSI disks. Programs should almost start instantly.

- Does anyone know what might cause this ?
- Is there some buffer or cache that fills up over time ?
- Are there any different settings that I can try ?

I've pulled the box from the operational network so I can fiddle with any tips you can think of.

I appreciate any thoughts on this,
Ray

 

[STF26]

Hi Ray,

Does the TS Box have Office on it? If so, I have seen similar problems and this was the fix for me:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=282599

STF

 

[RayF]

Hi STF,

Thanks for your reply. The box does have Office 2k3 on it however I cannot find a trace of ctfmon. Perhaps that's something "office xp only".

Maybe it's me but I get the feeling that it is mostly occurring with non-Microsoft applications. Office applications seem to start immediately every time I try. Veritas Backupexec on the other hand takes more than 2 minutes to start. Same goes for Nero.

Ray

 

[STF26]

Are there any interesting events in the event log? How is the page file setup? What happens when you open Backup Exec from the console?

 

[RayF]

Event log doesn't report any unusual stuff other than normal informational events. Although there is one event about w32time which I've set to sync with an external time source but still keeps coming back as an error (net time /setsntp:<server> comes back with a operation succesful message).

I have the pagefile setup on a separate volume apart from system files (separate volume) and applications/data (separate volume).

When starting programs from the console they mostly appear immediately. I'm still testing the consistancy of this since I have to reboot and wait to get a "clean" environment every time I started an application.