Category Archives: Microsoft

Microsoft, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows Server 2008 R2

You may find that the DHCP Server Service Crashes in Windows Server 2008 R2 and SBS 2011 – RTM or Service Pack 1

If your Windows Server 2008 R2/SBS 2011 system is running the DHCP Server service then you may find that it crashes randomly, this is due to a race condition in the service.  If you do not have the service recovery option set then the DHCP Server service will be unable to service client DHCP reqests until you manually restart the service.

Microsoft have posted a hotfix for this issue and explain the issue in more detail here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2616864

KB 2616864 provides an updated version of “Dhcpssvc.dll” to prevent the race condition and potential crash.

Fax, Microsoft, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

The Microsoft Fax Service may crash randomly on Windows Server 2008 – SP2, SBS 2008 – SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2, SBS 2011

You may find that the Microsoft Windows fax service randomly crashes, this will be evident in the Windows Application Event Log where you will find Events with a Source of “Application Error”. These will reference “fxssvc.exe” and the exception code within the event will most likely be “0xc0000005”.

The error can occur because of a race condition in the fax service, this in turn can cause the access violation knocking the fax service over.
The issue can be resolved by installing the Microsoft Hotfix from KB 2302075 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2302075 this hotfix contains updated versions of “Fxssvc.exe” for Server 2008/Vista/SBS 2008 – SP2 and Server 2008 R2/Windows 7/SBS 2011

Fax, Microsoft, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

The Microsoft Fax Service crashes when you receive a fax on Windows Server 2008 – SP2, SBS 2008 – SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 – SP1, SBS 2011 – SP1

You may find that the Microsoft Windows fax service randomly crashes when your server is receiving a fax, this will be evident in the Windows Application Event Log where you will find Event ID 32083 and 32089.  These Events will contain the following errors/warnings:

The Fax Service failed to execute a specific routing method. The service will retry to route the fax according to the retries configuration. If the retries fail, verify routing method configuration.

and/or

Unable to route fax FileName to the requested e-mail address. The following error occurred: 0x80040211 This error code indicates the cause of the error. Check the SMTP server configuration, and correct any anomalies.

The error is related to two classes not being unregistered each time the Inetcomm.dll module is unloaded, next time it is loaded to route a fax a function still tries to point to the old address and causes the Fax Service to Crash.

The issue can be resolved by installing the Microsoft Hotfix from KB 973640 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973640 this hotfix contains updated versions of Inetcomm.dll and Inetres.dll for Server 2008/Vista/SBS 2008 and just a new version of Inetcomm.dll for Server 2008 R2/Windows 7/SBS 2011

Fujitsu, HP, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft, ML110 G5, ML350 G5, ML350 G6, Office, Outlook 2010, Primergy, ProLiant, Uncategorized, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP

Remote Desktop Sessions Pause Or Exhibit Unresponsiveness – Lag Whilst Typing And Session Will Not Accept Mouse Inputs

Remote Desktop Services can be extremely useful, allowing users to access a terminal server or their company desktop computer from another location.  One very common complaint with RDP sessions is screen refresh delays and a delay when typing or trying to click on items using the mouse cursor.  It will appear to most that the session has become unresponsive for a period of 5-20 seconds, after this delay the session will return to normal for a period of several minutes before once again becoming unresponsive.  You may find that this issue becomes more apparent as more users connect to the specific terminal server in question and if all these users utilise several applications (i.e. Outlook, Word and Excel) together.

Causes for poor user experience when connected via RDP are varied but one of the most common is resource exhaustion or contention.  This in turn causes a delay in processing that appears as a pause or unresponsiveness.

Check that your computer or terminal server has sufficient Memory to cope with the current load.

The next thing to verify by using performance monitor is that the PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time is consistently high, that’s correct this should be 90-100% when the server is not very busy.

It is worth running performance monitor using the PhysicalDisk\% Idle Time counter whilst you are seeing the slowdowns, this will help identify if your hard disk or controller are causing contention and in turn the pausing or unresponsiveness.

If you do find that the “%Idle Time” keeps going very low then it’s time to consider some of the options below to help resolve the issue

  • Install a second drive or mirror set, move the Windows Page File to this second disk/array to reduce the load on the drive/array holding your operating system
  • Install additional memory into the computer or server, this will reduce paging to disk and will generally improve overall system performance
  • Migrate to or upgrade your existing RAID controller to a unit that had a Battery Backed Cache (Fast) or Flash Backed Cache (Newer – Faster) to significantly improve performance and alleviate the system
  • Migrate to faster hard disk drives, 7200, 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drives are amongst the fastest.  The SATA interface is slower than the SAS interface but is cheaper.  Try to invest in the fastest drives that you can to future proof the system and avoid future performance issues if you have to scale for more users.
  • Ensure that you have at least 20-25% free disk space on all partitions/drives
  • Defragment all drives on a regular basis to optimise read and write operations
  • A cheap solution for improving disk performance may be to turn on the Hard Disk Cache using “Device Manager” or in the event that you are using a RAID controller without a battery backed Cache module you will need to open the RAID Array Management Software and then enable Disk Cache within the management software as this feature will not be available within “Device Manager” in this instance.  Please note that this does have some risks and should be used with caution, you may loose data in the event of a sudden/unexpected loss of power to the system.  Consider using this option with a UPS and redundant power supplies to reduce the risk of power loss to the system.  As always ensure you have a reliable backup that is carried out at regular intervals.

Example – HP RAID Array Configuration Utility:

Example – Windows Device Manager: