Slow Performance Saving Documents to FPNW Server

• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0

SYMPTOMS

Saving documents may take a very long time when the destination is a File and Print Services for NetWare (FPNW) volume. Although this behavior may occur in other applications, it can easily be seen using Microsoft Word 6.0.

CAUSE

When File and Print Services for NetWare encounters a sharing violation, it will retry the file operation on the file multiple times, with a short delay between each retry, before returning an error to the application. The total delay per file operation before a sharing violation error is returned to a client is 3 seconds. This is because of a server optimization used by both the Server service and the FPNW service in Windows NT Server.

A lengthy delay is seen in Microsoft Word because of the fact that Word will also retry the file operation up to 12 times when encountering a sharing violation while saving a file. This causes up to a 36 second delay when saving a file with Word to an FPNW server.

RESOLUTION

Sometimes, it may be preferable to disable this optimization. To do this, it is necessary to make the following registry modification.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).



2. Go to the following key:
   
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
   \FPNW\Parameters
   
   NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.



3. Add the following:
   Value Name: LockRetryCount
   Data Type: REG_DWORD
   Data: 0 (Default: 5)



4. Stop and restart the FPNW service.

Keywords :
Version : WinNT:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbprb