Re: Slow Network with New SBS 2003 & Old XP Workstations



FYI, I've tried running wuauclt /detectnow a few times and watching task
manager. I get a small blip of CPU usage from svchost, that's all. No updates
show either, but then all workstations were set to auto update previously so
they're probably up to date since last Sunday.

bhaf


"Les Connor [SBS MVP]" wrote:

Some things I'd check/do, if not already done.

Consider uninstalling WS SP2.
If you don't want to uninstall SP2 - then carefully check this:

Common Networking Issues After Applying Windows Server 2003 SP2 on SBS

http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/archive/2007/04/24/common-networking-issues-after-applying-windows-server-2003-sp2-on-sbs.aspx

... and any other SP2 related posts on that blog.

Use taskmgr on the workstations, and look for a svchost.exe process that's
using close to 100% CPU cycles on login, and periodically (like every hour)
afterwards. You can force this test by running wuauclt /detectnow from a
command prompt. If you get both high CPU cycles *and* unresponsive
workstations, then you need to install an update and either WSUS v3, or an
update and just the WSUS v3 update client.

http://blogs.technet.com/wsus/default.aspx

Post an ipconfig /all from the server, and from one of the workstations.

Are you sure all references to the old DC are gone?


--
Les Connor [SBS MVP]


"bhaf" <bhaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:F0020EAF-1894-4719-8577-C1BE1469172D@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I am having a week from hell with a major problem after going live on a new
SBS 2003 network last weekend. Maybe someone out there can help. Here's
the
info:

BACKGROUND
Although I'm calling this a new SBS setup, it was a migration of sorts. We
had an existing Windows Server/Exchange 2000 setup with 3 servers. After
having problems with a swing type migration initially, I decided to do a
clean install of SBS and manually reconfigure it to match our old domain.

So I did a clean install of SBS Premium 2003 R2, and set up the domain
(with
a new internal domain name) to match what we had before. This was on a
separate network so it did not interfere with our live system. I also set
up
a Windows 2003 Std server for file/print serving, and one test
workstation.
For the workstation, I first converted it to a workgroup setup, then ran
the
connectcomputer wizard to connect to the new domain.

I ran into a few problems, but nothing out of the ordinary. On the
workstation, I had to set some of the local security settings back to
Windows
XP defaults to even be able to run the connectcomputer wizard. But
overall,
everything seemed to work fine.

To migrate, I copied files (via an external USB drive) from old server to
new, and used ExMerge for mailbox data. I set up the other 14 workstations
as
I had the test one, and I used the File and Settings Transfer wizard to
save/restore user profiles from the old setup. Everything seemed to be
running fine.

THE PROBLEM
When I came in Monday morning after a long weekend of setting this up, the
problems began. All of the workstations (15 total) are intermittantly
slowing
to the point of being unusable. It can take 30 minutes to log on or open
an
e-mail. The computers don't really freeze - if you wait long enough, they
do
what they're supposed to. At any one time, at least one user is having the
problem, but a given computer may work fine for 4-5 hours or not work for
that long. The same user can go to another computer and have problems or
not.
The problems occur even when logged on as a local user - as long as the
computer is attached to the network.

Thinking that since the SBS server was the new part of the equation, I
spent
many hours with Microsoft trying all sorts of things on the server. That
yielded nothing. There are no real errors on the servers or workstations
other than occasional ones related to something timing out.

Finally, I reconfigured a spare workstation (with identical hardware to
many
of the live ones) from scratch and joined the new domain. It has run
without
problems for the last two days. So my focus has turned to the
workstations.
I've followed Microsoft's recommendation and stopped all non-Microsoft
services and disabled the WebClient service. I searched the registry for
references to our old server or domain name, and changed these to point to
the new ones or deleted them, though I didn't see any entries that would
have
a real impact.

But I don't know what else to check. My fallback plan is to rebuild all of
the workstations. We only have a couple of models so I can disk image them
to
save some time, but I would like to avoid that.

Does anyone have any ideas of what to look for?

FYI, we are using SBS 2003 Premium R2. It has SP2 applied plus all updates
through about two weeks ago. Other server is 2003 Std with SP2 and recent
updates. Workstations are all XP SP2.

Thanks,

bhaf

.



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