Windows XP Pro SP1 slow to display network drives

What version of the NetWare Client are you using? Right-click on the red N in the System Tray, select Novell Client Properties, and look at the Client tab. This is important.

Check out this page for some Novell client tweaks.

http://www.ithowto.com/novell/clientspeed.htm#1

1)  Are you using the NetWare client or the Microsoft client for NetWare?  You should use the latest NetWare client with the current service pack applied. Last time I checked, that would be the 4.83 client with SP2.
1a)  What protocol(s) are you using?  What protocol(s) do you really need?  Cut it back to the answer to the 2nd question.
1b)  If you're using IPX, make sure the frame type and IPX network number are specified; don't let it autodetect.

2)  Do you need DFS enabled?

3)  Make sure your provider order is correct.

4) Tweak the registry to get rid of the remote computer task scheduler.  NOTE:  Only do this if you know what you're doing!

If you have Applied Windows Update \Q811493 make sure it is version created 5/28/03 it was initially released with a flaw that slowed overall performance and especially network performance.  It was corrected and rereleased under the same name Q811493.

That is the likely culprit.

klopex's problem with browsing lower versions of Windows is because of the remote computer task scheduler - 2K/XP doesn't know enough not to look for the task scheduler on lower versions of Windows, so it waits on each PC or server it hits until it gets a response or times out.  If you have a mix of Windows versions then it would probably be the tweak that fixes your problem.  Summoner's link explains how to fix that, I believe.

Also, like PsiCop says, the version of client you're running may also have an impact.  There have been several interim NWFS.SYS patches released between the 4.83 release and each of the SPs, some of which did address slow access to NetWare drives issues.

Hi people

Just a quick update, Client is 4.83 sp2, at present we are in the process of moving from IPX to IP only so have both protocols enabled, if I have one or the other only this does seem to correct the problem except for the initial opening of Windows Explorer, which is delayed but not as long, I will also place the following key in the registry.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation\NetworkProvider]
"DeviceName"="\Device\NetwareRedirector"

and see if this fixes the problem.

Q811493 has been installed.

Provider order is Netware then Microsoft

I'm not to sure when you say DFS?

I will also see if removing the remote computer task scheduler will help.

Cheers, thanks for all your suggestions.

DFS is M$ Distributed File System.  It essentially virtualizes storage across multiple Windows systems.

If you don't use the feature, disable the service.

If you have the wrong date on the patch it is what is slowing down your computer because of a regression problem in the original patch.  What is the creation date of the patch?  Q811493.

I have 35 computers running in a Novell Lan  with clients for NT, XP, 98, 2000.  This removing and/or replacing this patch has solved or vastly improved the perfomance problem in every case.

Swithching form IP to IPX has had little or no effect on performance.

4.90 is out now.....looks good.

Must have been released concurrent with the NW6.5 rollout :)

With a XP computer on a Novell or a pure MS network - go into the network nieghbourhood - Local area connection - properties and remove QoS.  I have seen this stop at least a half dozen strange errors.

matrixnz -

Did your problem get fixed?  What was the resolution?  Will you be awarding points to the Expert(s) that helped you?  It has been nearly a month since you posted anything to this TA.  Please say SOMETHING.

Hi all

I'm back, sorry for not replying back so soon, had some major issues on our network over the last three weeks, first with MSBlast and then internal issues but enough of my problems, I have still been getting issues with the slow browsing, but under preassure released an image to our supplier aka Dell when the new machines arrived (fortunately only 10% of them), the brown stuff hit the fan, cause we weren't able to browse the network properly without xp hanging up, or zenworks applications weren't being loaded, so over the last five days been in my office, working 12-16 hour days to get it sorted, here are my results of what I've found, one our laptops had wireless network connection that inteferred with the Lan settings as it was placed first in the list of adapters under advanced settings in local area connection, moved this down the list this speed things up considerably on the laptops, I also needed to change settings under the client, i.e. under Novell Client Properties changed it to IP as prefferred, I than removed it from binding to NDS and also DHCP NDS.  I believe most of the problems as many here have suggested is that we have one, too many protocols and doesn't help that we need to have Windows Network Client enabled either, (we need this for some of our apps to install, they bomb out if it isn't around.)  I have also changed \device\netwareredirector\ in the registry the path recommended was
 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetwareWorkstation\NetworkProvider]
 this didn't really help, however placing it these two places seem to help
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NetwareWorkstation\NetworkProvider]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet003\Services\NetwareWorkstation\NetworkProvider] does anyone know what the last two are suppose to do anyhow I believe these helped, I have also updated the client to 4.90, with all the different fixes don't know which ones helped and which ones didn't but anyway many of your suggestions have helped and I will go through them when I get a spare minute to award the points.  Again I apologise for my tardiness.

Cheers

Hi all

Sorry again for the long wait between replies to be honest I've still been working on the problem above still, well trialling the fixes over the last two or three weeks to be precise, however first I want to thank all of you for your comments, although the solution I mentioned above alleviated most of the problem, after a week things seem to go go back to its old self, which frustrated the hell out of me.  So went back to square one, I felt that it couldn't be the image and in a way I was right, after all the imaging, reg hacks it turns out the administrators at the two problem sites had changed their server settings to accomodate router problems they had been having last year, they had switched a couple of services that didn't handle the ip/ipx very well, the service is on tip of my brain, but just can't think of what it was called.  Anyhow we also decided to install SLP (Service Location Protocol ) which allows the clients to locate servers and other services on the network during our transition to IP.  This seems to be working and has been trialed over the last two to three weeks as I mentioned before, without any issues.  Whoo hoo

I have decided to the points to PSICop for his suggestion at looking at our ip/ipx process.  Thankyou all again for your great responses and your patience.

Cheers

Glad to hear its working for you. Yes, SLP is crucial in any IP-based NetWare of any significant size.

Just had a similar problem, and tried many of your proposed solutions.  I am not running Netware, strictly windows environment with server 2003.  Just thought I would post my solution incase anyone else stumbles across this area with a similar problem.  I have done much searching, on the net, but ended up solving it myself.

For some reason (i'm still not sure why, as it didn't happen with any of our other XP machines) my new XP machine had long delays listing the network drives, and initializing a request from a web browser.  To solve this, I went to network connections, then  properties for the internet gateway connection(not the LAN connection) and went into settings, then turned on DNS as a service running in my network.  This solved the problem.  I found it odd that this was initially disabled, as none of the other machines were this way.  Because XP is heavily reliant on DNS, I guess it was having problems resolving anything without it.

Anyway, just thought I would add this to help anyone else who may be having problems with the new and improved "features" of XP.

Matrixnz

We are the exact same situation as you were. The xp My computer hanging problem.We have computers running XP prox sp1 and Novell Client 4.9  sp2 . When we first start the machine and login to the novell network and in the background NT domain (single sign-on),. the login script runs and all the mappings happen. When you open My Computer , it shows the mapped drives but when you click on them it takes a long long time to show the contents..but at the bottom left  corner you can see the number of files and at the right corner you can see the total size in MB of the contents, but NO directory listing at all. After a long wait it shows up. If you logoff and logon again the display is instantaneous but if you power off and power on again .. the same problem occurs..

Would really appreciate if someone could advise me on this.

This is a problem that has been annoying folx from day one with XP Pro.  Like I said earlier in this Question.

First, make sure that the UNC filter is on in the client properties, advanced properties.  It should be by default, but it doesn't hurt to check.

Next, fix the XP stuff that is the root cause of this.  Turn of unnecessary services.  Go into Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, View, and uncheck "Simple file sharing" and "Automatically search for folders and printers."  If necessary, do the registry fix where you delete the reg key that automatically searches the network for scheduled tasks.

Once you do all of that, your folder list should be fast from the start.