Possible problem with File System drivers pre-installed by Dell causing performance issues.

[Symptoms]
Editing GPOs on our Windows 2000 SP4 Server (Active Directory) takes up to 15 minutes, for example:

- Click on the "plus" sign to expand the "Windows Settings" folder
- Wait 5 minutes for the folder to expand
- Open "Folder Redirection", right click on "My Documents" and click "Properties"
- Wait 5 minutes for the properties window to appear
- Make a change and save/close the window
- Wait 5 minutes for the settings to be saved and the window to close

When attempting to logon to the server from a Windows 98 PC while the GPO is not responding the logon script often freezes as well.

I have seen KiXtart crash when the server is too slow to respond during logon script processing.

Also have seen this cause problems for people using Outlook where the .pst file is on the server

There have also been occasional reports where the file server performance is less than adequate, though there are only about 6-7 computers using this server for file storage at this point. Not able to pin-point if this relates or not.

Adding a GPO to a new MMC session has taken about 5 minutes at times

Browsing a share/folder on the server when the MMC is not responding causes the explorer window to not be able to fill information such as file size.

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[Other notes that could relate]
- The server CPU utilization does not go to 100%, but acts perfectly normal (that being around 1% most of the time.)
- I am able to browse the Local Computer Policy without trouble.
- If I open a new MMC from my local machine (runas /user:domain\administrator), I am able to add the GPO object that I need to edit and browse it without any freezes.
- In other words, this problem ONLY happens when I edit a GPO while working on the server (either at the console or via Terminal Services).
- I have been unable to find anything about this "issue" anywhere, though I remember reading something about Service Pack 4 causing problems for some people, but no one has mentioned this specific issue.
- Had MS Client and Gateway Services for Novell installed for a while, but it has since been un-installed. (Problem existed when it was installed as well.)
- Experienced problems simply starting the Active Directory Users and Computers control panel (mmc) or my custom Group Policies MMC.
- When problems occur while I'm trying to work in a GPO MMC I also experience problems on my local machine. For example, attempting to open a Word document on the server normally takes 2-3 seconds. When it is having problems it takes well over 15 seconds. Saving this text file in Notepad just took 45 seconds! (The very next save was instantaneous). (The next save: 20 seconds).

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[Things I've tried]
Tried contacting Dell via e-mail, but they responded that this is an "advanced" Windows problem, which would apparently require payment to help solve.

Posted over 5 times to the Dell Forums with no response so far.

Tested Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2, then Service Pack 3, and then Service Pack 4 using Microsoft Virtual PC Trial and discovered that none of those versions have this problem. (The Virtual PC trial was run on my local Windows XP Pro machine.)

Tested Windows 2000 SP4 OEM CD that came with the problem Dell PowerEdge on MS VPC Trial, including eTrust AV and BackupExec 9, and the problem does not occur. (NOTE: Running VPC on Windows XP workstation, not on the server.)

Compared running File System driver versions between two VPC test servers and the problem server. The only difference between a working test server and the problem server is two additional FS drivers on the problem server that don't exist on the test servers (cdudf.sys and udfreadr.sys)

Updated the eTrust AV drivers (MS suggestion)

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[Communication from Microsoft]
- Requested to run userdump from the MS OEM Tools and dump the memory from the mmc.exe process when it was locked. MS analyzed the dump file and determined the following:

Gptext.dll is loaded in the mmc.exe process, it spawned a new thread in the process, and the purpose of that thread is to load the ADM template. That thread is supposed to signal an event that it has done its work and we can proceed. We wait for 250 ms and if it is not signaled we then load the wait cursor and wait forever for it to be signaled. That is the state of what you see in the interface, you are in wait mode. In the other thread we spawned we are trying to copy a file. It could be different depending on what you clicked on but in this particular dump the file name is ( I have removed your company name and replaced with MyCompany) The operation we are performing is a copy with the following parameters Source file \\MyCompany.lan\SysVol\MyCompany.lan\Policies\{DD8110D3-28F1-4DCE-A19C-7BA9B5FE601C}\Adm\conf.adm Destination file C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\1\adm2.tmp If the file exists override it I suspect if you performed the following command you would see a hang as well Copy \\MyCompany.lan\SysVol\MyCompany.lan\Policies\{DD8110D3-28F1-4DCE-A19C-7BA9B5FE601C}\Adm\conf.adm C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\1\adm2.tmp From this dump I cannot tell you anything beyond this because we are only looking at user mode space and we now transition into kernel mode to do the copy. I am not sure from the dump if we are trying to access a server that is our self or if it is remote. It could be a network issue, but I suspect it may be our self and that it may be a filter driver in the kernel. Either way it would be interesting to see if you can eliminate the mmc.exe process by using a simply copy at the command line to reproduce the hang.

- The copy command did in fact take 3-5 minutes as well. After updating the AV drivers, however, the copy command works fine. The GPO MMC.exe still has problems, though.

- Analysis of MPS reports suggested that the eTrust AV drivers should be updated. Updated them and nothing changed.

- At the request of MS, will perform a kernel dump this week.

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[Hardware Details]
Make/Model: Dell PowerEdge 600SC
Processor: Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 2 73 GB disks, mirrored
Partitions: c:\ = 12 GB; D:\ = 56 GB
NIC: Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection
Service Tag: 92NG341

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[Software / Configuration Details]
... See Below ...

*******************
[*** Questions ***]
Has anyone else experienced this?
Any suggestions on how to correct the problem?
Is it a specific problem with Windows 2000 on Dell PowerEdge 600SC?
Is it an issue with Service Pack 4?
Could it be related to file serving performance issues with the same server?

If any additional information would be helpful please post a reply.

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[To Test / Try]
- Update test Windows 2000 SP4 setup in MS VPC Trial with the same updates applied from Windows Update.

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[Software / Configuration Details]
Windows 2000 SP4 came pre-installed from Dell

Network Components:
Client for Microsoft Networks
File and Printer Sharing for Microsft Networks
Network Monitor Driver
Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) (NOTE: DNS server property in TCP/IP settings points to itself using its IP address, not 127.0.0.1)

The server is the first and only domain controller in the Active Directory forest.

Filter Drivers Running (Tab Delimited):
__________________________________________________________________________
Name Description File Status Error Control Date VPC Date
cdfs Cdfs c:\winnt\system32\drivers\cdfs.sys OK Normal
cdudf cdudf c:\winnt\system32\drivers\cdudf.sys OK Normal
dfsdriver DfsDriver c:\winnt\system32\drivers\dfs.sys OK Normal
efs EFS c:\winnt\system32\drivers\efs.sys OK Normal
fastfat Fastfat c:\winnt\system32\drivers\fastfat.sys OK Normal
ino_flpy INO_FLPY c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ino_flpy.sys OK Normal
ino_fltr INO_FLTR \??\c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ino_fltr.sys OK Normal
mrxsmb MRXSMB c:\winnt\system32\drivers\mrxsmb.sys OK Normal
msfs Msfs c:\winnt\system32\drivers\msfs.sys OK Normal
mup Mup c:\winnt\system32\drivers\mup.sys OK Normal
netbios NetBIOS Interface c:\winnt\system32\drivers\netbios.sys OK Normal
npfs Npfs c:\winnt\system32\drivers\npfs.sys OK Normal
ntfs Ntfs c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys OK Normal 12/31/79 08:00 pm 05/08/01 08:00 am
rdbss Rdbss c:\winnt\system32\drivers\rdbss.sys OK Normal
srv Srv c:\winnt\system32\drivers\srv.sys OK Normal
udfreadr UdfReadr c:\winnt\system32\drivers\udfreadr.sys OK Normal
______________________________________________________________________
Name Version VPC Ver Same? VPC2 Ver VPC2 Date Same?
cdfs 5.0.2195.6655 5.0.2195.6655 TRUE 5.0.2195.6655 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
cdudf 5.3.4.21 n/a FALSE n/a FALSE
dfsdriver 5.0.2195.6664 5.0.2195.6664 TRUE 5.0.2195.6664 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
efs 5.0.2195.6655 5.0.2195.6655 TRUE 5.0.2195.6655 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
fastfat 5.0.2195.6655 5.0.2195.6655 TRUE 5.0.2195.6655 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
ino_flpy 5.0.6100.106 5.0.6100.102 FALSE 5.0.6100.102 06/22/04 02:07 pm FALSE
ino_fltr 5.0.6100.103 5.0.6000.82 FALSE 5.0.6000.82 06/22/04 02:07 pm FALSE
mrxsmb 5.0.2195.6713 5.0.2195.6713 TRUE 5.0.2195.6713 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
msfs 5.0.2164.1 5.0.2164.1 TRUE 5.0.2164.1 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
mup 5.0.2195.6655 5.0.2195.6655 TRUE 5.0.2195.6655 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
netbios 5.0.2149.1 5.0.2149.1 TRUE 5.0.2149.1 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
npfs 5.0.2147.1 5.0.2147.1 TRUE 5.0.2147.1 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
ntfs 5.0.2195.6710 5.0.2195.6753 FALSE 5.0.2195.6710 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
rdbss 5.0.2195.6713 5.0.2195.6713 TRUE 5.0.2195.6713 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
srv 5.0.2195.6699 5.0.2195.6699 TRUE 5.0.2195.6699 07/14/03 08:00 am TRUE
udfreadr 5.3.4.60 n/a FALSE n/a FALSE