Delay in opening documents over the network

A few days ago, I upgraded our server to Windows Server 2003. The upgrade went very well, but users and I have been noticing that many documents we attempt to open from home directories or any network directories result in a delay for about 30 seconds before opening properly.

In the case of a Word document; Word opens fine, then freezes for about 30 seconds until the document opens.

This is rather annoying, and I would like it to be remedied...


We are now on 2003 (standard), it is an AD server and a file server, home directories are on C:\accounts and are shared as 'username$'. We have tried moving some home directories to a different drive on the server, and the same issue happens.
When running documents locally on the server and using the path C:\accounts\<username>, the problem does not occur, but if I go to \\server\username$ to run documents even locally on the server - the freeze occurs.

I have disabled the firewalls, etc, so simply cannot see a reason for this problem to persist. Anyone help please?

 

I think it is UNC resolution problem.
UNC provides a naming convention for identifying network resources.
UNC names consist of three parts:
- server name
- share name
- optional file path

That are combined using backslashes as follows :

\\server\share\file_path


See this article:

This one

The server portion of a UNC path refers to names maintained by a network naming service such as DNS or WINS.

See the DNS or WINS to try resolve that problem.

 

if it is a UNC problem can that be verified by \\ipaddress\sharename?

I'm thinking it's a virus scan issue.

 

Disabled virus scan software on clients and server to no avail. Not all documents have the issue - It is usually one in every 3 documents opened that freezes for about 45 seconds before opening properly.
This has only occurred since the upgrade to 2003.

 

Update:

I ran an image of Windows 2000 Server (which I'd made before the upgrade), and once this was done, all users were able to access their documents normally.

After putting it back to 2003, the sluggish behaviour returned...

Still confused.

 

That was i said on the link in the post

 

Disable Oplocks and it will probably go away. This is a stopgap solution, because in order to figure out whats really going on a network trace must be taken and interpeted, which PSS can do for you, for a price. But this is probably good enough:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q129202

 

Are you sure?

This is a windows server 2003 environment!

 

Ok, to make you feel better, heres a 2003 flavor of the article with the same keys. I search the KBs for documentation of keys i know to exist, not the other way around

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q296264

 

No mean to offense JoeHobart.
I hope quackbal let us know the solution.

 

I will try this later, at the moment the servers re-imaged back to 2000 Server (and everything is working fine), but I will re-load the 2003 image tomorrow hopefully.

Will keep you posted - thanks for the help.