THE WINDOWS 2000 CORPORATE WORKSTATION PERFORMANCE GUIDE
- written by Kdr Kane - February 20, 2002
I. OVERVIEW
Purpose
This article is designed to provide guidelines for determining performance issues with Windows 2000 workstations in a corporate environment. The article touches on many issues. It does not always present a solution. My desire in writing this article is education and a different perspective for users and engineers in the tasks they may be required to overcome in their use of Windows 2000 Professional.
Scope
This article should not be considered all-inclusive or a final solution. Single or multiple issues can cause slow, sluggish or intermittent performance. This guide should be used as a reference for discussion and not necessarily for a solution until proper testing and client requirement gathering are completed.
This guide does not go through the hundreds of "tweaks" to be found on the Internet. Corporations should try to maintain a workstation configuration as close as possible to the original Microsoft operating system design. This reduces application compatibility problems from surfacing.
Many of the suggestions in this article dispute some of Microsoft's recommended settings. I am providing some personal experience gained through two years of testing and working in a very large Windows 2000 corporate production environment.
This article deals with workstation performance in Windows 2000 Professional. Server issues are only touched as they relate to the workstation. Servers are naturally assumed to follow best practices. Such practices include separating servers by function. For instance, Domain Controllers, File and Print Servers, and Application Servers should each run on their own server.
General
Performance issues can be separated into distinct areas of concern.
Enterprise
Enterprise settings can be attributed to Active Directory integration, the corporate workstation build and core network topology. Enterprise environments discussed in this article relate to a large distributed network.
Campus
Campus issues relate to the local topology of the network within a campus or site. These issues are tied to the network type and configuration - and - server location.
Machine Specific
Machine specific settings generally relate to the build of the workstation, type of network connection and protocols, hardware compatibility/performance, the number and type of applications in operation, and possible user modifications to the standard build.
II. PRIMARY ISSUES
This section attempts to identify issues most likely to cause performance problems on the workstation.
Hardware
The minimum recommended hardware configuration for a standard corporate suite of workstation applications includes a Pentium II 450 Mhz CPU, 128 MB of RAM and a 6 GB hard drive.
Systems at or below this recommendation may experience severe performance issues. This is especially true if the user has a tendency to open more than a couple of applications at the same time. Of course, certain applications may be more resource intensive than others.
The preferred hardware configuration includes a Pentium III CPU, 256 MB of RAM and a 10 GB hard drive.
Network
Network issues involve workstation setup, network connectivity and network congestion.
Multiple Network Interface Cards
If a workstation is using multiple network interface cards (NICs), significant performance degradation can occur. Use of multiple NICs is highly discouraged. Windows 2000 will enable and install drivers for all supported NICs by default. Any unused NIC installed in a workstation should be manually disabled. Routing through multiple NICs is normally prohibited within a corporate environment. Remote users enabling Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) or proxy software should also be discouraged.
Protocols
The standard workstation build will install Client for Microsoft Networks, File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks, and Internet Protocol by default. Client Services for Netware (CSNW) may be installed on some workstations for Netware connectivity. Full migration to the Windows 2000 environment should be completed as soon as practical to allow the removal of CSNW. CSNW and other protocols installed will have a significant impact on performance. This is especially true of remotely connected users.
Be aware that Microsoft's default installation of the NetWare protocols is not optimal. The binding order should be changed and the IPX protocols should be unbound to the Microsoft Client and File and Print Sharing.
Network Connectivity
The best solution is a well-connected workstation to the Enterprise. Remote Access, VPN and campus remote sites present challenges in the design of the corporate workstation. Consideration should be given to the bandwidth available and the duty of the applications over the connection. Monitoring or network sniffing should be considered in dealing with network related issues.
Topology
Intermittent notification of being offline is a direct indication of network congestion, network overload of the workstation or routing problems.
Network routing paths (routers) should be reviewed for possible misconfiguration.
The type of network should be considered. Determine if there are differences between Ethernet and Token Ring network response.
There may be issues on 100 M-bit Ethernet. Refer to MS KB Article Q169789 if this issue is suspected.
III. APPLICATIONS
Type of Application
The purpose, development and programming of some applications can require severe system resources. Individual applications should be evaluated for performance issues. I have included a couple of examples to steer you in the direction of application problems.
Wingate causes 99% CPU utilization. This is not a typical corporate product and only serves as an example of how some applications may "misbehave".
Microsoft has provided some information as to a particular problem with Visio 2000. As shown in Knowledge Base Article Q289909, Visio 2000 can take several minutes to open a file that was originally created with Visio 5.0. During this time, Visio may appear to stop responding.
Too Many Applications
Some users may open more than five applications at a time. Significant performance problems may occur due to system load.
Temporary Files
Temporary files created by some applications should be created locally on the user's workstation. Creating temporary files on network shares will impact performance. Most Office applications will always create a temporary file in the directory within which the original document was opened. This cannot be modified since this an issue with the application itself. Strange enough, Excel will always create the temporary file locally on the workstation. MS Word always creates the temporary file on the network resource if the file is opened on the resource. Again, this is most significant for remote users.
Group Shares for Templates
The use of group shares for document templates can significantly impact workstation performance in applications. This is a known issue with Microsoft Office.
Firewalls
The inclusion of local firewall software on workstations can cause unexpected connection problems if the configuration is not made known to the user. Remote Access and VPN clients typically used such software as BlackICE Defender.
Some home gateway routers do not pass IPSec or encrypted packets correctly to a VPN server. Authentication and connecting to network resources may be impossible in some instances. I do not want to list vendors of such routers that do not work, because I know that some of the manufacturers are working on this. However, Netgear routers have not been identified with this problem.
IV. SERVER PERFORMANCE
Load
Server performance should be checked. Performance can be affected by server applications, print queues and user load. Problems with server performance can have a significant effect on users.
Location
Optimal server location should be determined. Network location and bandwidth utilization can have significant effect on users.
Caching
Windows 2000 Server share points should be set up with appropriate client-side cache settings. One of the properties for shares includes the setting for caching. There are four types of caching available.
- No caching
- Manual Caching for Documents
- Automatic Caching for Documents
- Automatic Caching for Programs
This setting on the server share will inform the Windows 2000 client operating system via the SMB protocol to locally store a copy of the user's network files.
Caching should be set consistently throughout the enterprise for support reasons. Typically, I recommend that Manual Caching for Documents to be used. Automatic Caching forces local client caching without any real benefit for network connected users. Laptop users may manually set up Offline Folders to cache a local copy of their server-side files for Offline use. Offline Folders is discussed in more detail later in this article.
Protocols
TCP/IP should be the standard protocol used on File and Print Servers. During migration, Gateway Services for NetWare (GSNW) may be used for the facilitation of data migration from Netware servers. This protocol may have some impact on server performance and should be disabled as soon as practical. Be aware that Microsoft's default installation of the NetWare protocols is not optimal. The binding order should be changed and the IPX protocols should be unbound to the Microsoft Client and File and Print Sharing.
V. REDIRECTION
Redirection is a feature of Windows 2000, which simply maps a network share to a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. The Redirection path is set in Active Directory through Group Policy Objects (GPO). Redirection is equivalent to mapping a drive to a network share.
Redirection automatically enables Offline Folders for the redirected folder. Local caching can be automatically enabled by the server share cache setting for the network share.
Redirection of the My Documents (and My Pictures) folder is encouraged because the Microsoft Application Certification Standards requires applications to have the default save location pointed to My Documents. Using Redirection allows all user data saves to occur on the server.
Redirection of the Application Data folder is discouraged because the performance impact is significant. This feature allows application settings to follow the user should the user change workstations. Not using this feature will only affect user specific changes in their application settings.
Redirection of the Desktop is even more strongly discouraged. There are significant Desktop refresh issues when the user starts saving documents and icons on their Desktop. With this type of Redirection, the user may experience complete loss of their Desktop icons until they actually perform some action with their Start Menu. This becomes too much of a trouble ticket generator at the corporate Help Desk.
VI. OFFLINE FOLDERS
Offline Folders is a feature of Windows 2000, which allows local caching of documents stored on network resources. The Offline Folders feature is automatically enabled when using Redirection. As noted in the server section, the caching option can be set on the server.
Offline Folders can be used independently of the server cache settings and Redirection. This is a manual operation and can be set by selecting the option Make Available Offline for specific folders.
Please note that mapped drives can also be locally cached. Again, use of this feature should be a user preference. Performance will be degraded if this feature is used.
Synchronization
Offline Folders should be forced to synchronize upon user logon and logoff. This policy can be set in Active Directory. If the synchronization is not forced, users may experience significant confusion when files were not consistently available and are lost.
Users can manually synchronize their Offline Folders at any time.
Local Caching
Offline Files are stored locally on the workstation in a hidden directory. The local cache is only used in the event that the network resource is not available and the user is notified that they are working offline.
Local caching does not improve performance by using locally stored data when the user is network connected. The network resource is always used for all document reads and writes when available. This contradicts Microsoft's early documentation.
Laptop and remote users should develop work habits of working offline when performance issues arise. An alternative is for remote connected users to work on files in local directories until the document is finished. Then the process of manually moving the document to the network resource will save the document appropriately.
Users may inadvertently create a large Offline Folders cache. The manual method to reinitialize (and empty) the local cache is performed in Explorer. Simply select the menu item Tools -> Folder Options. Select the Offline Folders tab. Hold the keys CTRL+SHIFT when you click on the Delete Files button. The Offline Folders database is cleared.
There is an undocumented registry entry that allows the local cache database to be reinitialized. This entry disappears when the computer is rebooted, so it only has effect once.
Set the following DWORD registry value to 1 and reboot the computer:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache\FormatDatabase
How many files are on the server?
Users should limit their data storage to appropriate levels on servers. If users are storing several hundred files on network resources, significant performance issues can arise due to synchronization of Offline Folders.
VII. HARD DRIVE FRAGMENTATION
Hard drive fragmentation can have significant performance degradation on the workstation. Defragmentation should be performed regularly to reduce this performance hit.
Manual Defrag
Windows 2000 includes a rudimentary defragmentation tool. This tool can only be run manually and under the local user context.
Automatic Defrag
Consideration should be given to providing a standard automated defragmentation utility in the corporate workstation build.
Slow Link Detection
Group Policy
GPO settings can be enabled at a point that is consistent with detecting a slow-link in the native Windows 2000 operating system. Further testing would need to be conducted to determine the suitable settings needed. My recommended setting is to change the default of 500kbps down to 64 kbps.
VIII. SECONDARY ISSUES
This section attempts to list some more possible issues that may have a performance impact on the workstation. These issues are not as likely to be present, but should be considered if performance is not improved after looking going through the previous section. I do not consider these items to be as critical. I have listed them for reference.
Server ServiceAuthentication- Domain Time Synchronization
- DHCP Lease Time
File System- File Compression
- Disable 8.3 Filenames
- Removable media in drive
- Floppy or CD in drive
Browsing- Scheduled Tasks
- Browser Master
Page File
IX. PERFORMANCE TOOLS
Event Log
The Event Log should be used regularly when users are having performance issues. The Event Log captures details of significant events in the operating system and applications. To access Event Log, right click on My Computer and select Manage.
Task Manager
Task Manager can be used to view running applications and services, CPU utilization, memory utilization and available memory. To access Task Manager, right click on the Task Bar and select Task Manager.
Performance Monitor
Performance Monitor can be used to chart, log and set alerts for performance issues. Performance Monitor should only be used on an interim basis and troubleshooting. To access Performance Monitor, right click on My Computer and select Manage.
Sniffer
If the network is suspected to be causing performance issues, the appropriate network support organization should be contacted and a request for sniffer traces performed. Your corporate network support is the most reliable source for determining issues with protocols and congestion.
Network Monitor
Network Monitor, previously supported in Windows NT, is not easily supported in Windows 2000. Windows 2000 requires a newer version of Network Monitor that is not readily available. The correct version of Network Monitor can be found on Microsoft's SMS Server.
X. COMPARISON TESTING
Using Internet Explorer
A simple, but effective method of helping to determine if network congestion is causing performance problems on the workstation is opening Internet Explorer and comparing its performance with other applications.
Reboot
Testing the performance of a workstation before and after a hard reboot of the workstation can help to determine if unstable applications or the operating system are causing problems.
Benchmarking Software
Many suites of benchmarking software provide a known set of applications and scripts. The problem with using these benchmarks is that the design is usually contingent on the suite operating under the assumption that benchmarks may be published and made public. It is necessary in those instances that the known suite is run under specific conditions.
Many corporations utilize their own approved applications and versions that differ in some way from the benchmarks. The benchmarks that I have seen do not usually check performance well when the user's data is located on a network resource.
If you need a benchmark, then I would recommend E Testing Labs Business Winstone:
http://www.etestinglabs.com/benchmar.../bwinstone.asp
At this time, you can get the CD for about $5-$7 USD.
XI. SUMMARY
If you have read everything and gotten this far, then you are hard-core Windows 2000. The operation and configuration of a Windows 2000 architecture are assumed to be understood by the reader.
This article is a listing of possible causes of workstation performance problems in a corporate environment. Many of the issues were only slightly discussed and others may seem obvious. Hopefully, I captured almost everything that could have some affect on workstation performance. If I left something out, let me know.
Responses and opinions are always welcome.
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The Windows 2000 Corporate Workstation Performance Guide
