Tag Archives: “Windows Server 2008 R2”

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:

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

The Startup Process in Windows 7 – SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 – SP1 may be slower than expected

An issue that was identifed a few months ago is slow system startup with your Windows 7 Desktop/Laptop or Windows Server 2008 R2 Server.  This is related to a delay in the initilisation of the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider (Deals with Shadow Copy, System Restore and Backup).

All is not lost as this issue can be fixed by applying the latest version of Volsnap.sys to your operating system

Currently the latest version can be found in the following Microsoft Hotfix (KB 2548124) and applies to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 – RTM or Service Pack 1 installs.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2548124

Command Prompt, Microsoft, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2

Microsoft Windows 7 – Service Pack 1 and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 – How to Easily Free Up Some Disk Space

Have you started to notice that C drive is getting a little full or do you just want to have a spring clean, well you may not realise it but when you installed Service Pack 1 onto your lovely Windows 7 machine or Windows 2008 R2 Server that Microsoft very sensibly backed up all the old system file before replacing them with new ones.

Assuming that you have had Service Pack 1 installed for sometime without issue it may be good to know that you might be able to reclaim some disk space by dumping these obsolete system files.

Simply launch an elevated Command Prompt by right clicking “Command Prompt” and selecting “Run as administrator”.  Once you are in a command prompt simply paste in the following:

DISM /online /Cleanup-Image /SpSuperseded

Be patient with this command as it will need to enumerate a large number of files and could take up to 60 minutes to complete.  Once finished I would recommend a reboot.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 all use an imaging environment to install so with this command we are launching Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) and then telling it to remove any of the superseded service pack files.  If you do not have any files to remove, might be because someone else has already removed them or your computer/server may have already come with Service Pack 1 pre-installed/integrated.  In this instance you will get a message like the one below, you will also get this if you try to run the command a second time after all the old files have already been removed.

Exchange, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Microsoft, Office, Outlook 2010, Powershell, SBS 2008, SBS 2011, Small Business Server 2008, Small Business Server 2011, Windows, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Powershell Script to Determine Active User Count for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007

A script that I came up with to determine the user load that is being placed on a particular Exchange server so that you can plot the days of the week and times of the day that are busiest. This Powershell Script can be used with GFI Max Remote Management or SpiceWorks to easily identify busy Exchange servers.

$GETMSEXCHISAUC = Get-Counter ‘\MSExchangeIS\Active User Count’
$MSEXCHISAUC = $GETMSEXCHISAUC.CounterSamples |Select-Object CookedValue
Write-Host You have $MSEXCHISAUC.CookedValue Active Exchange User Connection\s to the Exchange Server

Feel free to edit the text part of the output (Last line), this could be simplified if required.