“My server is slow”A lot of the general server slowness I’ve been seeing recently has been with clients who use SQL daily.

How can you tell it’s SQL slowing the server down?Go into the processes in task manager and look for sqlservr.exe. If it’s taking up a lot of RAM, then it usually is part of the problem. For example, theirs is running at 2gb total between 2 processes. Normally it should be under 500mb but it depends on the system. There are cases when this is not true and they are fully functional with huge databases, but it is something to consider as part of diagnosing a slow server.

Open SQL DatabasesRun MSSMSE (Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express) and connect to a database. Sometimes they are listed automatically. Server type should be Database Engine. Server name should be server_name\database_name such as APPSERVER\SBSMONITORING. Authentication should be Windows Authentication. Sometimes you can’t find the right names in the GUI and you can literally type them in and see if they open. You can also go into Services and check for database names in the SQL and MSSQL areas (for example, SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) would be one). Sometimes you can click the dropbar for Server name and go to Browse and find them that way as well.

Once you connect, expand Databases to see the names. You can ignore anything that says System, master, tempdb, model, or msdb.

Shrinking SQL DatabasesShrinking databases is sometimes a good thing. It acts like defragmenting a hard drive and can help the server get to data quicker and easier. This should be done on large log files or databases if there are complaints about a program being slow.

First, view the log files by clicking on the database name and then clicking the New Query button. Type dbcc sqlperf(logspace) and then press the Execute button. Below the log file sizes are listed in the results tab. Anything over 20mb can be considered large. Take note of the names of the large databases.

If any log files are large, then run the following on it, replacing database_name with each database name:

• backup log database_name
• with truncate_only
• dbcc shrinkdatabase(database_name, truncateonly)
• Run dbcc sqlperf(logspace) again to see the new size, it should be under 1mb.

You can also use the GUI in MSSMSE to shrink the databases themselves. They can take minutes to hours to complete, depending on size, so give yourself adequate time to do this after hours, or just stick to weekends.

Right-click on the database name and go to Tasks, Shrink, Database. Click OK and let it execute. It should disappear when it completes. If you get any errors, it might be too large to shrink or busy at the moment. Like defragmenting, sometimes it requires space to shrink so you may have to increase the Initial Size and try again, which will be covered below in Optimizing. You can try again after shrinking the files. Right-click on the database name and go to Tasks, Shrink, Files. Under File Type, choose Data or Log and then click OK to shrink them. Make sure to go back and do BOTH Data AND Log. Do these same steps for each database that is necessary.

Optimizing Databases For SpeedThere are a couple settings that will make databases slower or are bad in combination. Normally these settings can be ignored for small databases (under 50mb) since they don’t make a huge difference in speed for those, but large databases can be very slow because of them.

First, open MSSMSE and open the appropriate connections. Right-click on the database name and go to Properties. Under Options, we want to set Auto Close to False and Auto Shrink to False. Auto Close keeps the database closed between access and can make it very slow when it is constantly opening and closing. Auto Shrink is good for saving space on the hard drive but it can slow down a server if every time it expands the database to make room, this process shrinks it back down and they battle for size.

Next, go to Files. Here you can change the Initial Size (MB) to larger if you are unable to shrink a database down (see above) because the database is 500mb but it says 25mb as initial size. Increase it to over 500mb in that case so it have some room to shrink down. Normally this setting can be ignored. Autogrowth is the focus of this section. I suggest setting the Data File Type to By 100mb, unrestricted growth and the Log File Type to By 10mb, 25mb, 50mb, or 100mb in either restricted or unrestricted. If the log file is very small (< 5mb), then it doesn’t need to increase by 100mb each time, 10mb would be fine.

Corrupt SBS Monitoring DatabaseIn MSSMSE, open SBSMonitoring, expand databases, right click it and go to Properties. If the size is over 2gb then it might be corrupt. Once it reaches 4.5gb it will be impossible to shrink down, and you know for sure it is corrupt.

Every SBS 2008 server has the database SBSMonitoring running, which can get corrupted and grow up to 4gb big. As your database is completely filled up, then you can replace it with a clean empty one, to install your new clean database, please follow these steps:

1. Run services.msc.

2. Stop the Datacollectorsvc service(Windows SBS Manger Service), SQL Server(SBSMONITORING) service (To be able to unlock monitoring database files)

3. Change the name of those 2 files in case you will use them in the future:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\SBSMonitoring.mdf

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\SBSMonitoring_log.ldf

to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\SBSMonitoring-bak.mdf

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\SBSMonitoring_log-bak.ldf

4. Download http://cid-6ca40dd0d4c9caa6.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/sbsmonitoring.zip file. (I have these files now if we need them in the future)

5. Unzip the zip file and copy those two files to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data\ folder

Note: you don’t need to do detach or attach database in SQL Management Studio. And that database has already been tuned by the SQL command above.

6. Start the SQL Server(SBSMONITORING) service

7. Start the Datacollectorsvc service(Windows SBS Manger Service)

Who is affected with Small Office and Home Routers Web Hacks?
Anyone with a router or firewall is advised to make sure you are using something other than the default password or a simple password.

We have heard of this type of security risk before but until this week we have never seen the problem first hand. We have had 2 cases of routers being hacked and DNS entries being changed in 3 days and I expect that number to grow.

How It Works
What happens is malicious code is used to exploit DNS setting on routers with weak or default passwords. Once these DNS settings are changed, any PC attached to the device that uses those DNS records will be redirected to sites other than the site they were looking for.

What To Do
The best action to take is to prevent the attack by changing your router password to something secure using letters, numbers and special characters. Simply adding a “!” to an existing password makes your security exponentially better. We recommend your password be at least 10 characters long with a combination of letters, numbers and special characters.

If you are already affected you will need to contact your internet provider and see what DNS servers to use and then use those settings on your router. You will also need to change your password or you will risk having the same problem all over again.

If those settings are correct and you are still having problems it may be caused by something else. You can also contact us and we will help you.

We suspect that the attack is coming from a website that was visited but it could also come from spyware already on your PC. It is highly unusual to get such a rare attack on two completely different systems so close together and I expect the problem to grow over the next few weeks. Even if you are not affected, it is still recommended to improve your security by updating your password.

We secure all routers and firewalls we install for both our home and corporate clients but if we did not install your device you could be at risk and as a precaution we will be logging on to our corporate clients firewalls to confirm the security. If you need help or want more information feel free to contact us.

If you are using Microsoft Windows 7 Peer to Peer as a file server to share files to other XP or Windows 7 Computers on the network you may find that the network slows down or fails to connect after a short amount of time. You may also fin the following error in the Event Viewer of the Windows 7 Peer to Peer File Server:

Source: srv 
Event ID: 2017 
Level: Error 
The server was unable to allocate from the system nonpaged pool because the server reached the configured limit for nonpaged pool allocations.

If you need to share files off a Microsoft Windows 7 Computer to other PCs on the network you need to tell it to allocate resources correctly or you may experience problems after the share has been active for a while or when transferring files.

To fix the problem you need to set the following registry key to ‘1′ on the Windows 7 Peer to Peer File Server:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache

and set the following registry key to ‘3′:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\Size

Reboot after making these changes and you will find the problem no longer occurs.

Symptoms: Win7 machines appears to take a very long time to log into their desktop.

Search Terms: Win7 x64, windows 7 64 bit, slow log on, slow logon, slow domain, long welcome screen

Fixes:

Solution 1: Registry Hack

1. Run gpedit.msc.
2. Go to computer configuration.
3. Go to Administrative templates.
4. Go to System.
5. Go to User profiles.
6. Enable “Set maximum wait time for the network if a user has a roaming user profile or remote home directory” and set to 0 seconds
7. Source: blog.bigsmoke.us/2010/03/17/fixing-extremely-slow-domain-logon-windows-7

Solution 2: Desktop Background

1. Change the background from a solid color to an image.
2. If a solid color is necessary, create a 1×1 pixel of the color and save it as a bmp and use that image

Solution: 
Upgrade to one of the following versions:

6.0.12 or higher
6.5.5 or higher

These versions increase the time allowed for the copy process to five (5) minutes.

 

If this issue persists increase the copy timeout using the following steps:

1. Run regedit.
2. Create the following DWORD registry key:

64 bit Operating System: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Symantec\SMSMSE\<version>\Server\DefsUpdateTimeInSecs
32 bit Operating System: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\SMSMSE\<version>\Server\DefsUpdateTimeInSecs

NOTE:  Replace <version> with the version of SMSMSE installed.  For example on a 32-bit system with 6.5 installed the key is: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\SMSMSE\6.5\Server\DefsUpdateTimeInSecs.

3. Set the value of the key to be the timeout in seconds.  For example to set a ten (10) minute timeout set the value to 600.
4. Close Regedit.
5. Restart the following SMSMSE service:

Symantec Mail Security for Microsoft Exchange