Tag Archives: “very slow”

HTTP and HTTPS requests or traffic to a Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, SBS 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 or SBS 2011 machine may exhibit increased latency if the connection is through a network load balancer

If you utilise Microsoft Internet Information Services IIS or an application that uses the System.Net.HttpListener class is installed or running on one the operating systems below, and you have a Network Load Balancer then you may find that Increased latency occurs on HTTP and HTTPS requests and traffic.

This issue occurs because the HTTP and HTTPS requests from clients can include zero length data in the SSL records, certain server-side variables do not update correctly in this instance and Http.sys leaves the connection in the CLOSE_WAIT state.  This intern exhausts the open connection limit can introduce latency, timeouts and connection problems.

Affected Operating Systems:

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft Windows 7

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 – SBS 2008

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 – SBS 2011

The Microsoft Knowledge Base Article KB 2634328 includes further information on this issue and provides an updated version of Http.sys that corrects the issue http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2634328

Windows 7, Server 2008 R2 and SBS 2011 RTM or SP1 – svchost.exe may hold a lock on a service and cause slow Windows startup

You may find that svchost.exe holds a lock on a service whilst all the service libraries are being loaded.  This in turn then prevents any other services in the same instance of svchost.exe from starting up until the call to the function has been returned.

An updated version of svchost.exe that will address the issue is available here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510636

A Virtual Machine, Laptop or Computer running Windows XP is Slow to Startup and/or Applications take a long time to load

These two issues can occur for two different reasons, a corrupt file in the Windows Prefetch Folder or it could be that the Prefetch Folder is cluttered.

To resolve these issues you need to delete the contents of the C:\Windows\Prefetch folder and then restart your computer.

The Prefetch folder is just a cache of recently used application executables and will be recreated based upon the applications you use most frequently.  Over time the folder becomes cluttered with rarely used and prefetched applications hence the launch of applications becomes slower.

You may find following the clear down of the Prefetch folder and reboot that the first time you open each application it is still a little slow, ths is because Windows will automatically re-add the application on its first launch to the prefetch folder.  After your first use of the common applications everything should now be much faster and you should find startup times have been reduced.

Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2/SBS 2011 RTM or SP1 – Slow System Startup and Login

You may experience very slow system start up on occasion, this is due to Windows carrying out an unnecessary validation of the WMI repository.  This validation is very time consuming and slows the overall start up and login process down.

A Microsoft hotfix is now available KB 2617858 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2617858 and should resolve the slow startup by preventing unnecessary validations of the WMI repository.