Re: Problem with Vista 64bit client accessing files on SBS 2003 share

I'm going to disagree that it's a patch on the 64bit per se. As I have 'em all with no issues here. What nic card? What cabling? Move the computer to another switch?
Did you install any drivers?

Cris Hanna [SBS - MVP] wrote:
First off you should know that SBS 2003 is not officially supported by MS on any virtualized environment. That's not to say it won't work, just would make it tougher for you to get support from MS
But most likely this is due to a patch on the Vista 64 machine. I think my approach would be flatten it...rejoin to the domain immediately, Apply Vista SP1 if not included.
And then let it go for a day or two and see how things go. Then slowing apply 1-2 patches wait a few days and so on. Otherwise you'll never figure out what's causing it.
Do NOT apply driver/hardware patches from MS

--
Cris Hanna [SBS - MVP]
Co-Author, Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Small-Business-Server-Unleashed/dp/0672329573/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217269967&sr=8-1 <http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Small-Business-Server-Unleashed/dp/0672329573/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217269967&sr=8-1>
Owner, CPU Services, Belleville, IL
A Microsoft Registered Partner
------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft
Please do not submit questions directly to me.

<patgrayjr@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:patgrayjr@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote in message
news:0968a744-61a4-4473-8aba-7c0a98aa41e2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have SBS 2003 with all the latest service packs and patches (not
2003 R2 however). This installation has been working merrily with a
mix of Vista 32 and XP clients. I recently purchased a Dell
workstation with Vista 64 (8GB of RAM) and all was working fine with
this computer for about 4 weeks, until things went bad about 18 days
ago.

SYMPTOMS:
At that point, the Vista 64 desktop is unable to use any files from
the network shares on the SBS. By that I mean that I can browse the
share easily, but if I attempt to open a 70K Word document, word hangs
at "Downloading file" for about 5 minutes, then gives up. Similarly if
I attempt to drag a file into an Exchange window to attach it to an
email. At this point, about 70% of the time access to the SBS becomes
horribly slow (start menu takes forever to open in a console or remote
console session) until being rebooted. The other 30% of the time the
server recoveres, but if I attempt to open another file things go very
bad, sometimes to the point that I cannot login to the server even
from the console and must power it off and do a couple reboots before
things are back to normal.

Despite this, I can access the same files on the Vista 32 and XP
workstations without incident, and Exchange (hosted on the same
server) seems to work merrily along on the 64bit machine leading me to
believe its not a general network issue. 64bit machine can also browse
the web and connect to other local servers just fine, and as I
mentioned, was able to open and manipulate files on the share all day
long until a couple of weeks ago.

WHAT I'VE TRIED:
- I ran SBS BPA and it suggested I change a registry setting related
to TCP networking. I did so, rebooted and the symptoms remain.

- Tried the "slow vista share access" suggestions on the 64 bit
machine of disabling RSS and network optimization (I think those were
the terms) and rebooted. No luck.

- Defragged the server drive in SBS and VMWare (more on VMWare below).

- Did a factory reinstall on the Dell workstation. I wish I had
stopped windows update from running to verify my suspicion that this
might be realted to a Windows patch since the machine worked fine one
day and stopped working another, but I was deluged with all the
current patches before I could join the SBS domain and test file
access.

- Sacrificed a goat and saw two different witch doctors.

THE ENVIRONMENT:
SBS is running under VMWare server version 1.3, with Ubuntu as the
host OS. There have been no changes to the VMWare environment since
this problem began although I'm pondering upgrading to ESXi and hoping
that might fix something. I tried giving the SBS virtual machine more
and less RAM but that doesn't seem to help.

The funtional and dysfunctional 64 bit workstation live on the same
network subnet as SBS and each other and nothing has changed with the
network, so I don't think it's a network problem.

MY SUSPICIONS:
This problem only appears on the Vista 64 machine, and the only
changes that have happened in my environment have been auto-applied
hotfixes so that's my primary suspect although I'm unsure if a patch
on the workstation or server would be the source if that is indeed the
case.

The only other suspect I have is that the drive housing the share has
gone over 100GB and that VMWare may be struggling a bit with it, but I
cannot fathom why that would only affect the Vista 64 machine and not
the 32 bit Vista and XP clients.

Any suggestions and advice are HUGELY appreciated as I'm at the end of
my rope on this problem and about to throw this otherwise excellent
64bit machine out the window!
.

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