[sdw2003] This Vista problem has been bugging people forever!! Maybe now solved...

[Tad Braun]

(Taken from WserverNews newsletter)...

Slow Vista File Copy Nightmare Solved!

WSN Reader Nick's Vista Horror story in last issue has a follow-up. He
wrote: "I MAY have finally turned the corner on Vista turning me gray
and bald, although what little hair I have left after the last 4 weeks
is definitely going gray :) I bought a MS Wireless Desktop 1000 to
install on that Latitude ATG 620 with Vista Business that has been
torturing me. Certified for Vista. Install Intellipoint 6.1 off the
disk. Plug in the receiver. No joy. It wants the disk. Says the disk has
no drivers. WTF. Download and install Intellipoint 6.2. Plug in the
receiver. No joy. It wants the disk.

Now, we've been to 'Trinity and Beyond.' Where do we go from there?
Chixulub asteroid impact? Call MS hardware support (They were good).
Eventually discover that NO new hardware (i.e. thumb drives, wired
keyboards, anything) will install. OK. Uninstall SP1. Install Intelli
point 6.2 again and Lo! and behold! the hardware installs. Great.

Test the network response time without SP1. Now, there is nothing
particularly old, creaky or obscure in my setup. I've got a PowerEdge
800 running SBS 2003 for a server and a Cisco SB2024 Gigabit switch. It
took 5 MINUTES to copy a 61 MB file. Sigh. Install SP1 again. Hey, the
hardware still works AND I can install other new hardware. It's a
miracle. Test the network response time, again. Now it takes 40 seconds
to copy that 61 MB file. XP only takes 8-10 seconds. It beats 5 minutes,
but it still ain't great. So I start googling for post-SP1
slow-file-copy bug problems. Eventually, I come across a reference to
Mark Minassi's blog that deals with the autotuning feature of the new
TCP stack and that even relatively new switches and routers may not like
the autotuning 'feature'. (SP1 by default undoes all the tweaking that
poor bastards like me have been flailing away at to try and fix this
EVIL.) So I enter the following into an Administrative cmd window:

C:\> netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

Now I tried that pre-SP1 and it didn't make a darn bit of difference.
But Lo and behold! The 61 MB file now comes down the pipe in 6 seconds.
So I test pull the SP1 mega-executable from the server (434 MB) Takes 1
minute 34 seconds. Run the same test on XP. Takes 1 minute 53 seconds.
It's a miracle. We still aren't smiling. Its been a full year, a service
pack, and a command line tweak to get performance better than what XP
had to offer. MS has burnt a lot of credibility with me with their utter
silence on this issue--and how, if they eat their own dogfood, that this
issue ever got out the door without being caught and killed. But there
is light at the end of the Vista tunnel--and maybe all the hair I have
pulled out will grow back in brown and not gray :) 

Maybe this will help others (it's all about the caring, sharing, and
learning!! Oh, and the free lunch...)

Thaddeus Braun 
IT Manager 
Compendia (formerly Master Manuals) 
(858) 487-7300 
10967 Via Frontera 
San Diego, CA 92127 
tbraun at compendiainc.com 
www.compendiainc.com 

CLICK. FIND. SOLVE. 

Yesterday we were Master Manuals. 
Today we are Compendia