pthomas

I recently setup a network for a small company (8 employees) which consists of a netgear wireless router, a windows 2003 server and wireless clients, all XP SP2 with firewall turned off. All of the wireless clients connect to the access point at 54Mbps and all recieve either very high or excellent signal strength. Their are no other wireless acess points around them. The problem that they are having is that the wireless network is slow. I mean crazily, slow. For instance, for a wireless client to access the server it will take about 5 seconds just to open a folder. they browse one folder deeper on the server and might have to wait 3 seconds for it to do its thing. The server is brand new and has tons of free space on both drives and the hard drives aren't slow. But its not just accessing the server thats slow, its also accessing the internet. checking email can sometimes time out. Printing a simple word document with no pictures will take a good 25-40 seconds to send, and we are talking 4 pages of text. The server is running DHCP and DNS along with active directory. Its staticaly assigned a 192.168.1.200 IP address and a 255.255.255.0 subnet. Wireless clients have a x.x.1.x IP, same subnet, the gateway is the router 192.168.1.1 and the DNS server is our server 192.168.1.200. Does anyone know why wireless is sooooo slow? I've used several wireless networks and they don't feel nearly this slow, even when only connecting at 11Mbps! From any wireless client, I can do a ping and get response times roughly equal to what I get from the server. And the server hauls a** for internet, printing and well, you name it. Its only the wireless clients that are slow. any ideas? Thanks, Paul

I find it quite strang ethat you are using such an old operating system with new hardware. Microsoft no longer supports win98! It's more than 7 years old! -install the latest video driver. A generic video driver will be installed by windows and will only support up to 256 color and low window resolutions (640x480 or so) -There's actually little to no speed difference between these two versions. Keep in mind that even if you use the same website to test speed between each version, that website will NOT respond exactly as quick 5 seconds later due to the amount of traffic on the web server. Theoretically, you'll never get the same speed twice. - IE6 is compatable with it, otherwise MS wouldn't let you install it ;p -Well, IE is really a very integrated part in your OS. Even if you "remove it" it is still there. think of IE as part of your OS, because it really IS. Paul

Ok, I wasn't quite paying attention there. You started that post! So I guess my answer to that question is that it can;t be done. Thanks for the help, Paul

Sorry, I've already looked at that post. He's wanting to do the same thing that I am but he never found a way to do it. Paul

Ok, I've heard numerous things on the web here and there claiming that winXP with SP2 could allow (either by reg hack or some other setting) two concurrent sessions. the one that I've heard of the most is the ability to have one user physically on the PC and another one remoting into it. I ran into one site that was linked by the msfn unattended guide here: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm Look down at number 163. That one sounded like it would work but it didn't allow me to do the above. Can anyone else out there confirm or deny being able to sucessfully have two sessions in the final SP2 release? I know that SP2 in its beta state was said to have this all enabled...but I'm not interested in beta. If you can confirm it, please provide a link! Paul

So the document actually DOES print but it says that it does NOT? Paul

Sounds like the laptop is part of a domain with group policy specifying the automatic update settings. You will NOT be able to change these settings for automatic updates. I'm guessing you use this laptop at work as well as home. When winXP SP2 is on a computer that is joined to the domain, SP2 is geared to also make it easier for admins to controll updates. Your network administrator sets a group policy object to make all computers update from a local server, these settings are domain wide and will not be able to be changed. Since your laptop is part of the domain, it inherits these GP settings which you cannont change. For the folder problem, you need to either disable the firewall on the laptop or configure the firewall to let all file sharing through. What firewall you ask? Upon upgrading to SP2 the firewall is ENABLED by default. Turn it off and you won't have any problems. With your SP1 PC the firewall is disabled by default. Thats why the laptop can see the desktop's stuff ok, but the desktop can NOT see the laptop's stuff ok. Paul

Alright, question time. It came back? Was this after a reboot or something? Have you already downloaded and installed the latest video drivers from nvidia.com? Is hardware acceleration set to full under display properties? Does the software rendering seem to kick in after a certain app is launched? Paul

Is the program called Quick Books or Quicken? Quicken has a link to a program that will fix that missing file that is probably worth a shot regardless if either app is installed. You can get it here: http://www.intuit.com/support/quicken/2003/win/6058.html (link is in middle of page) If you still have problems after running that, then from what I saw on a quick google search, it looks like you've either been hit by a virus or still have that virus on your PC. You need to download the latest virus defs, reboot into safe mode and scan your entire PC. Then remove Quick Books (backup any important data first) boot back into normal mode and Re-install Quick Books. It would be worthwhile to download, update and run a2 to check and remove any malicous spyware too (run a2 in safe mod for the scan as well). If you need a freeware approach to virus scanning, you can get ahold of AVG antivirus, a free virus scanner for home use here: http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/ (click next on bottom of page after you've caught up on AVG) And you can download a2 for free here: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/ Keep us informed on progress good or bad! Paul

Are windows incredibly slow when you drag them across the screen? Or like you can see windows being drawn in some cases? Sounds like you've somehow got windows to only draw the desktop with software rendering instead of using hardware rendering provided by your 3d card. If you've already installed the latest video drivers off the web, then your problem most likely resides in whatever you took out of XP by using the Nlite program. Ram/FSB speed is NOT going to cause this at all. This is purley a video problem. It is true that running the RAM and FSB speeds exactly the same in an Athlon system provides the best performance, but this will NOT create the problem that you are having. And the performance penalty of running the RAM faster than the FSB is only like 3-7% depending on RAM, timings used, MB chipset, ect. Double check to see what you did not include using the Nlite method. To rule things out, install xp and updgrade it to sp2 in some method other then using an Nlite method. I'll bet you it works fine and something that got taken out of the install is causing your problem. Paul

Good point: However, there are a few limitations. If you take a look, notice that all the windows sounds are all .wav files and it isn't possible to specify an mp3 or anything else. But I would say that it is possible to play, at the very least, a .wav file via some built-in windows command. Anything else I'd say you would need an actual media player. As to if its a command or VB function, no idea here! Paul

Why do any of the users have a local admin account? That really takes the point of you being a system admin totally away. If a user needs admin access on a PC, add their domain account to the power users group on the local PC. Don;t make them local admins. Otherwise, if they have a local admin account, you can NOT stop them from loggin on locally or even removing your access from that computer since they are an administrator of that PC. They have to logon to the domain for domain policies to take affect, so even if you had domain restrictions, logging on locally bypasses them. Remove all local admin accounts and make them have to use their domain account to sign onto the computer. You can safely delete old computer names from the domain. Paul

You never did mention your internet connection type. Also, if you have any P2P programs running (Bittorrent, Kazaa, eDonkey....) these also will eat up your bandwith and slow your internet connection. More details please! Paul

Heck ya! Throw linux on there! I'd highly recommend Gentoo linux is you want to get the best out of that hardware because you can compile the system specifically for that hardware (if you want to go that far) and you can also install only the items that you want to. It can take as long as a day or two or as short as like 45 min to install gentoo depending on how much optimization you want to do. The GRP install is the quickest and is probably what you want. It should take about 45min and get you moving towards where you want to be. If you have never really "used" linux before, then this is going to be a bit of a learning curve, but its really good experience. From what you described, you should setup a Gentoo linux box with Samba v3 (NT4 file serving&authentication), KDE 3.3 on Xorg (easy to use GUI envirnment) and probably VNC (so you can remote desktop to it like a windows 200 terminal server). www.gentoo.org -> User docs has lots of helpful how-to's Stuff you will need: Gentoo install Samba How To see also samba.org -> how to To setup a Terminal Services like Remote desktop on KDE with VNC: TS setup Samba 3 will let you actually create an active directory thats NT4, 2K and XP compatable and authenticate users. Samba also is your best friend for fileserving between linux and windows clients. Use the web-based Samba config called SWAT. It makes setting up samba, adding users, shares, changing permissions....ect a snap. Use at least ReiserFS v3.4 on the server for the main root directory, stable and will work great for lots of files. If you get stuck, forums.gentoo.org has some excellent help sections. That forum is loaded with answers. And if you can;t find it, post, there is always someone there with an answer. Enjoy, Paul

If you put a CD-RW in it like you said, then It'll only write as fast as that CD-RW media is capable of. Nero is smart enough to see what the media you're putting is is capable of and only writing that fast. So if your CD-RW is only rated for 10x... and your drive can write RW's at 32x max... You can only burn at 10x Keep in mind that CD-RW's can't be written too as fast as CD-R's. Paul

You'd be better off doing a goodle search for windows XP service pack 2 problems or get on the MS site, since they have a section dedicated for SP2 problems and have listed fixes and such. If you've got a specific problem then post it up here! Paul

Just boot off of CD and select the correct partition. How come you use different partitions to divide stuff up? Thats what folders are for! Making many partitions like that will tend to slow things down after each one starts to fill up. While I'm at it. Backing up data to another partition on the same hdd is quite pointless when the hdd fails. Unless you format the system partition quite often and only use it to bring stuff back over afterwards. Another thought just sunk in. Are these c,d,e and f drives phyisically different drives or are they partitions like my thought above was suggesting? If they are different drives, then you need to put the f drive in place of the c drive in the system (yes, I'm talking about unplugging the drive and movin' it!). Example: Primary Master -> C Primary Slave partition 1 -> d Primary slave partition 2 -> e secondary maseter -> f Just because you install windows on the secondary master, that does not make it drive C. The drive letters start always on the Primary master drive and go down from there. Does this clear things up? Other questions? Paul

Ok, let me get this straight. You've got two routers and two computers, both routers are wireless? Is there really a need for two wireless routers? How is everything hooked up? What plugs in where, what goes to what.? But really all you shoul need to do is pretty much just have the main wireless router that connects to the internet do all DHCP, NAT and firewall services. Turn them off on the other wireless router and make it just a simple access point. Then you just need to make the 2nd wireless router an access point to the main one. Paul

The problem that you are having with writing to the NTFS file system resides in the kernel that the live CD is using. Most of the Gentoo live cds are pretty robust, but I do not think that any of them have WRITE support turned on for the NTFS filesystem. By default the live cd will have READ-ONLY access compiled into the kernel, but beyond that, you may have to get either an updated kernel that has NTFS write support compiled in, or compile a kernel with NTFS write support and create your own custom Gentoo Live CD. The easier way if you like the Gentoo Live cds for flexibility...try knoppix linux. Its a bootable linux distro like the Live CDs but its a fully working linux enviornment that boots off of cd and doesn;t mess with the hdd. I believe it has NTFS write support built in by default as long as you boot off of the 2.6 series kernel. Give knoppix a try, it sounds exactly like what you are looking for and more: http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html Using knoppix 3.6 or later will allow you to write to the NTFS filesystem. Enjoy, Paul

prathapml, now thats interesting. So if we really wanted to make a somewhat spyware proof computer (notice I said somewhat!) then we could put a preconfigured deny hosts file in a customized install. I think that will come into being VERY handy, Paul

Yeah, at the place where I work users tend to beat the snot out or their PCs as well. I'm mostly fighting spyware or trying to figure out how they managed to delete their taskbar or weird stuff like that. If you've got the space on a network server, then roaming profiles are the way to go to ease your headache with backups and to keep the computers clean. But its a constant battle isn't it? I've got a lady that works up at our front desk thats quite frankly about as computer stupid as one can get. I was actually chewed out because I upgraded her PC froma 400mhz celery to an XP1800 (officeXP to 2003). And of course stuff was different, hence the new PC. She thought that I "deleted the network" because the shortcuts that XP creates when you browse to different places weren;t there on her new PC. *sigh* I'm sure that a program like what you're wanting can be written, but I'm not sure where to start on that one. You can hire a programmer on-line (do a google search there's quite a few websites). I'm only in my 2nd year on my BS degree in computer science, but even with all the programming I've done, I don;t think I could program it! Go the easy way....discipline them all!!!! Paul

Yes, you can download it here: http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/ Paul

Progress is always a good thing to hear! Ah, the first rule of troubleshooting that's almost always fogotten: check cables! keep us informed... Paul

look on the links on unattended.msfn.org. They have a guide on how to make the XP install source much smaller. Paul

If you're running a cable modem or DSL or heck, any setup that isn;t a t1 or better than you have to remember that you have a bandwith limit. Sure you can have millions of connections, but if they can;t all make it thru the modem, you don;t see any gain. Once you hit that bandwith limit, nothing else goes through. For instance I use road runner and have a personal FTP site and another PC that mainly does bittorrent downloads. When somebody is downloading off the FTP and BT is uploading at a good rate the 60KB/sec upload speed that is capped by every ISP is hit and no other data requests can go out. Even though my download limit (500KB/sec or so) isn;t even being touched, since the upload was being flooded, any requests for web pages and other things were going horribly slow. Unplugged either the FTP or the BT box and the internet flies again. bottom line: You are hitting the cap of the upload speed that your ISP lets you. Try it. Next time stuff sucks, do a ping test to google: "ping www.google.con -n 10000" and let it go in a command window. I'll bet the time sucks 400ms+. Kill a few things that are uploading (file sharing, BT, etc) and I bet that ping time gets much, much better. Paul