There are times when you are troubleshooting an Exchange Server issue where it appears that the server is performing OK, but the users are still complaining of the dreaded RPC dialog box and hangs in their client. Most of the time an Exchange administrator or helpdesk personnel needs to speak directly with the end user to determine what actions they were taking at the time the RPC dialog box occurs. Since there are numerous ways which can promote this dialog box, an administrator needs to understand specific actions that users were taking at the time of the problem. A lot of the times, this has nothing to do with server side performance problems, but rather something that is installed on the client or something the user is doing.

I have created a simple document in which the users can answer to allow you to gain some insight in to a users actions and their habits that are aggravating this RPC dialog box.

The document is password protected so that the fields are checkable. The password currently is "Microsoft".

Please provide feedback regarding this document to help make this better.

Thanks,

Mike

If you've ever had an issue where low memory conditions were causing working set trimming issues due to excessive use of the System File Cache, then we have just released a new service that can be used to help alleviate this issue called Microsoft Windows Dynamic Cache Service.

More information regarding this new service can be found here and a direct link to download this new service can be found here

With Exchange 2007 servers also running in to these issues which I blogged about here, this service could potentially allow other 3rd party services to play nice with Exchange 2007 which may be consuming more than it's fair share of the System File Cache.

So if you find that Exchange performance is suffering because of some other service taking up overall memory in the System File Cache, then this service may be just for you.

Hope this helps with some of your performance related issues.

Mike

I've created a Category called Perfwiz in which you can easily find all Perfwiz versions. Click on http://blogs.technet.com/mikelag/archive/tags/Perfwiz/default.aspx to get you there.

Have a good one!!

For all of you folks out there still hanging on to Exchange 2003 and dealing with performance issues, I have taken the liberty to update the Perfwiz data counter collection to the latest/greatest counters as the old Perfwiz tool on our download site is severely outdated.

Exchange 2003 Update Perfwiz

1. Extract the contents of the attached zip file to your Exchange server.
2. Open Performance Monitor
3. Expand Performance Logs and Alerts and select Counter Logs.
4. Right click Counter logs and select "New Log Settings From". Select the htm file that was extracted in Step 1. Click OK
5. Select the Log Files tab and click the Configure button
6. For the Log location, change this to a location of your choice. Click Ok
7. Click OK to save the Performance Counter log.
8. To start the Perfmon log, right click "Exchange_2003_Perfwiz" and then select Start.
9. Let this run during the problem period where performance is affected
10. Stop the perfmon log by right-clicking "Exchange_2003_Perfwiz" and selecting Stop
11. Make arrangements with a CSS representative to get the files analyzed.

Counter Collection List

\Database ==> Instances(*)\*
\Database(*)\*
\Epoxy(*)\*
\Exchange Server HTTP Extensions(*)\*
\LogicalDisk(*)\*
\Memory\*
\Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync\*
\MSExchange Intelligent Message Filter(*)\*
\MSExchange Oledb Events(*)\*
\MSExchange Oledb Resource(*)\*
\MSExchange Sender ID(*)\*
\MSExchange Web Mail(*)\*
\MSExchangeActiveSyncNotify OmaPush\*
\MSExchangeAL(*)\*
\MSExchangeDSAccess Caches(*)\*
\MSExchangeDSAccess Domain Controllers(*)\*
\MSExchangeDSAccess Processes(*)\*
\MSExchangeIMAP4(*)\*
\MSExchangeIS Mailbox(*)\*
\MSExchangeIS Public(*)\*
\MSExchangeIS\*
\MSExchangeMTA Connections(*)\*
\MSExchangeMTA\*
\MSExchangeOMA\*
\MSExchangeSA - NSPI Proxy\*
\MSExchangeSRS\*
\MSExchangeTransport Filter Sink(*)\*
\MSExchangeTransport Store Driver(*)\*
\Network Interface(*)\*
\Paging File(*)\*
\PhysicalDisk(*)\*
\Process(*)\*
\Processor(*)\*
\Server\*
\SMTP NTFS Store Driver(*)\*
\SMTP Routing(*)\*
\SMTP Server(*)\*
\System\*
\Web Service(*)\*

Enjoy!!