Random pausing when opening word/excel documents.

I have an SBS 2003 R1 server, with about 10 XP Home clients all sharing to
an 'F Drive' on the server. They are a workgroup and connect with the guest
account given full control to the share. All the file sharing works superbly
and is very fast when doing file transfers etc.

However, when people try to open a word or excel document directly from the
F Drive, they sometimes get a pause of about 30 seconds, during which time
Word or Excel goes 'not responding', but eventually come back. It only
happens about 30% of the time. Other times, the same file will open fine.
It's not related to network bandwidth, virus scanning or simply file size
(as sometimes huge documents open fine and other times tiny ones don't).

There are no unavailable network shares and all other types of document open
perfectly.

There seems to be some talk of Oplocks on google, but I can't find any of
the registry entries they suggest to disable it.

Any ideas please?




--
Thanks,

Martin.

What version and service pack level of Office do the end-users have?

Also, have you confirmed that your network switch is not showing first
symptoms of hardware failure?

-Brad


_______________________________________________
Bradley J. Dinerman, MVP - Windows Server Networking
President, New England Information Security Group
http://www.neisg.org





Martin Connolly wrote:
> I have an SBS 2003 R1 server, with about 10 XP Home clients all sharing to
> an 'F Drive' on the server. They are a workgroup and connect with the guest
> account given full control to the share. All the file sharing works superbly
> and is very fast when doing file transfers etc.
>
> However, when people try to open a word or excel document directly from the
> F Drive, they sometimes get a pause of about 30 seconds, during which time
> Word or Excel goes 'not responding', but eventually come back. It only
> happens about 30% of the time. Other times, the same file will open fine.
> It's not related to network bandwidth, virus scanning or simply file size
> (as sometimes huge documents open fine and other times tiny ones don't).
>
> There are no unavailable network shares and all other types of document open
> perfectly.
>
> There seems to be some talk of Oplocks on google, but I can't find any of
> the registry entries they suggest to disable it.
>
> Any ideas please?
>
>
>
>

Office 2000 service pack 3.

It's a brnad new Dell PowerEdge network switch.


Martin.

"Brad Dinerman [MVP - Windows Server Networking]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> What version and service pack level of Office do the end-users have?
>
> Also, have you confirmed that your network switch is not showing first
> symptoms of hardware failure?
>
> -Brad
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bradley J. Dinerman, MVP - Windows Server Networking
> President, New England Information Security Group
> http://www.neisg.org
>
>
>
>
>
> Martin Connolly wrote:
>> I have an SBS 2003 R1 server, with about 10 XP Home clients all sharing
>> to an 'F Drive' on the server. They are a workgroup and connect with the
>> guest account given full control to the share. All the file sharing works
>> superbly and is very fast when doing file transfers etc.
>>
>> However, when people try to open a word or excel document directly from
>> the F Drive, they sometimes get a pause of about 30 seconds, during which
>> time Word or Excel goes 'not responding', but eventually come back. It
>> only happens about 30% of the time. Other times, the same file will open
>> fine. It's not related to network bandwidth, virus scanning or simply
>> file size (as sometimes huge documents open fine and other times tiny
>> ones don't).
>>
>> There are no unavailable network shares and all other types of document
>> open perfectly.
>>
>> There seems to be some talk of Oplocks on google, but I can't find any of
>> the registry entries they suggest to disable it.
>>
>> Any ideas please?
>>
>>
>>

Have you tried running "detect and repair" from the help menu in Word or
Excel..?

"Martin Connolly" wrote:

> Office 2000 service pack 3.
>
> It's a brnad new Dell PowerEdge network switch.
>
>
> Martin.
>
> "Brad Dinerman [MVP - Windows Server Networking]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > What version and service pack level of Office do the end-users have?
> >
> > Also, have you confirmed that your network switch is not showing first
> > symptoms of hardware failure?
> >
> > -Brad
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Bradley J. Dinerman, MVP - Windows Server Networking
> > President, New England Information Security Group
> > http://www.neisg.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin Connolly wrote:
> >> I have an SBS 2003 R1 server, with about 10 XP Home clients all sharing
> >> to an 'F Drive' on the server. They are a workgroup and connect with the
> >> guest account given full control to the share. All the file sharing works
> >> superbly and is very fast when doing file transfers etc.
> >>
> >> However, when people try to open a word or excel document directly from
> >> the F Drive, they sometimes get a pause of about 30 seconds, during which
> >> time Word or Excel goes 'not responding', but eventually come back. It
> >> only happens about 30% of the time. Other times, the same file will open
> >> fine. It's not related to network bandwidth, virus scanning or simply
> >> file size (as sometimes huge documents open fine and other times tiny
> >> ones don't).
> >>
> >> There are no unavailable network shares and all other types of document
> >> open perfectly.
> >>
> >> There seems to be some talk of Oplocks on google, but I can't find any of
> >> the registry entries they suggest to disable it.
> >>
> >> Any ideas please?
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>

Technically, the KB article applies to Office XP rather than Office
2000, but just for kicks, have you tried upgrading one of the
problematic workstations to Office 2003 to see if it fixes the problem?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/818792/en-us

-Brad


_______________________________________________
Bradley J. Dinerman, MVP - Windows Server Networking
President, New England Information Security Group
http://www.neisg.org





Martin Connolly wrote:
> Office 2000 service pack 3.
>
> It's a brnad new Dell PowerEdge network switch.
>
>
> Martin.
>
> "Brad Dinerman [MVP - Windows Server Networking]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> What version and service pack level of Office do the end-users have?
>>
>> Also, have you confirmed that your network switch is not showing first
>> symptoms of hardware failure?
>>
>> -Brad
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Bradley J. Dinerman, MVP - Windows Server Networking
>> President, New England Information Security Group
>> http://www.neisg.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Martin Connolly wrote:
>>> I have an SBS 2003 R1 server, with about 10 XP Home clients all sharing
>>> to an 'F Drive' on the server. They are a workgroup and connect with the
>>> guest account given full control to the share. All the file sharing works
>>> superbly and is very fast when doing file transfers etc.
>>>
>>> However, when people try to open a word or excel document directly from
>>> the F Drive, they sometimes get a pause of about 30 seconds, during which
>>> time Word or Excel goes 'not responding', but eventually come back. It
>>> only happens about 30% of the time. Other times, the same file will open
>>> fine. It's not related to network bandwidth, virus scanning or simply
>>> file size (as sometimes huge documents open fine and other times tiny
>>> ones don't).
>>>
>>> There are no unavailable network shares and all other types of document
>>> open perfectly.
>>>
>>> There seems to be some talk of Oplocks on google, but I can't find any of
>>> the registry entries they suggest to disable it.
>>>
>>> Any ideas please?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>