At least once a week, someone on the Performance team will get a customer call concerning hangs or resource depletion on their file server. The file server in question is used for user home folder storage and users are accessing Outlook Personal Storage...

From time to time, customers will call in to report "performance problems" that they are having when copying large files from one location to another.  By "performance problems", they mean that the file isn't copying as fast as...

As promised - here's the long awaited post on the infamous /3GB switch. At least once a week we have this discussion with a Systems Administrator somewhere who has this set in the boot.ini file on all of the servers but doesn't know why. Maybe someone...

A common issue we work with is Printer Redirection issues with Terminal Services on Windows Server 2003. Although printer redirection seems fairly simple on the surface, the issues that we work on can get somewhat convoluted. So today we're going to look...

Tabbed browsing is a new feature in Internet Explorer 7. One question we are frequently asked by administrators is - "How do I control the tab behavior for my users to present a consistent experience?" We are also asked the same thing by developers who...

When addressing system performance issues, a key element that is often overlooked is Disk Fragmentation.  Even on a brand new system with plenty of RAM and high-end processors, the performance of the hard disk may be a bottleneck causing system performance...

In previous posts we've discussed the basics of memory management including an overview of kernel and user memory , pool resources as well as the /3GB switch .   Continuing our discussion of memory management, we are going to examine an issue...

Happy New Year!  We're starting off 2008 with a significant post regarding changes to Remote Administration in Windows Server 2008.  OK, it's not quite as dire as the title makes it out to be, but this is quite a significant change.  If...

Day Seventeen and we're still going strong.  Only ten days left until launch day!  Continuing on with Terminal Services, today's topic is Terminal Services printing in Windows Server 2008 - and more specifically Terminal Services Easy Print...

Good morning AskPerf world! Jeff Hagler from the Remote Resources team here to chat about printing. How many of you have ever dealt with an issue where you just knew that something was wrong with your print spooler but could not quite put a finger on...

Perhaps one of the most frustrating issues to troubleshoot is a system that sits at the “Applying Computer Settings …” screen for what seems like forever before (eventually) getting to the point that you can log in. Interestingly, although...

Good Morning AskPerf! My name is John Dickson, and I am a Support Escalation Engineer on the Performance team in Texas. Today we are going to discuss a scenario that is a common one as companies continue to deploy Windows Vista in their environment. How...

Welcome to the twenty-second day of our series. Only a few more days until Launch Day. We'll be sticking with Terminal Services through the end of our series. Today's topic is Terminal Services RemoteApps, a new feature in Windows Server 2008. RemoteApps...

The page file is one of those pieces of the operating system that administrators know that they need to have - but they can't always explain why they need it, or how to accurately size it.  Since Windows 95, Windows-based operating systems have used...

Today we're going to get started with Windows Server 2008 Server Core. First, let's talk about what the Server Core installation is (and what it is not!). Server Core is a minimal environment to run specific server roles, which reduces the maintenance...

Today we are going to discuss two new Vista performance enhancements, SuperFetch & ReadyBoost. We will also be discussing Vista RAM usage since these all work together. First, SuperFetch is an enhancement of the Prefetcher that you have probably...

One of our common issues is troubleshooting application crashes (for example, the Print Spooler or a third-party application). These crashes usually result in the infamous Dr. Watson error. First, let's discuss terminology. A crash is when something experiences...

There often arises a need to figure out what may have changed on a system, either due to a specific issue or even to compare the difference between two systems. Today I would like to introduce you to the Windows System State Analyzer utility. Unless you...

It’s day 13 of our Launch Series and we are nearing the finish line. Today we are going to look at ways to print from your Modern UI Apps. So you have loaded Windows 8, and need to print from one of the new Modern Apps that have installed, but...

Following up on our Memory Management 101 post, we're moving on to a discussion of Pool Resources and Pool Resource Depletion. First of all - what are Pool Resources? When a machine boots up, the Memory Manager creates two dynamically sized memory pools...

Troubleshooting issues with the SVCHOST.EXE process can be a very frustrating experience for server administrators.  Whether the issue manifests as High CPU or the SVCHOST.EXE process crashing, there are some challenges that make the troubleshooting...

At the end of 2007 we talked about Bugchecks and why they happen .  Today we're going to talk about the Crash Dump files themselves - the different types of dumps, how the dumps themselves are generated and why you will need a correctly sized page...

Windows XP introduced a new feature called Remote Assistance that enabled XP users to help each other over the Internet. Helpdesk personnel were able to view and even share control of their network users machines using Remote Assistance. However, with...

Memory Management issues make up a considerable portion of the support incidents that we handle. At some point during the support incident we invariably engage in a discussion of Memory Management, Memory Tuning, the use of the infamous /3GB switch and...

Following on from our posts on the Basic Troubleshooting Toolkit and Basic Debugging of an Application Crash , let's talk about actually capturing Application crash dumps and failures. Most administrators are familiar with the Dr. Watson for Windows tool...