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

[Michael J McCafferty]

This is funny. I just copied a 496.6MB file from one machine to another
by dragging a file from a "Windows" SMB share to my desktop with a mouse
and it only took 1 minute and 6 seconds. Same protocol, same visual
mechanics, larger file, less time. The difference being that I wasn't
using Vista, of course. The thing that makes me chuckle a bit is that
the server was CentOS 4.6 on a Celeron 1.7GHz and a couple of SATA
drives, and my workstation is Ubuntu 7.10.

It's as if MS didn't test the performance of the product before they
released it. Like it didn't ocur to them. Naturally, that's not true.
But someone decided it wasn't a critical enough bug to fix before
release.

I solved the bug before it affected me, I don't use Vista (see above). I
don't want to be the "Linux Linux Linux, neener neener neener" guy,
because there are plenty of things that Windows is great at when
compared to Linux (yes I said that). It's just that Microsoft should
have some advantage on the Samba performance thing, and they *decided*
it wasn't big enough to fix until now... and it's not really all that
fixed.


On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 14:53 -0700, Tad Braun wrote:
> (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 
>  
> 
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-- 
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Michael J. McCafferty
Principal, Security Engineer
M5 Hosting
http://www.m5hosting.com

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