Question

Explorer access is slow for other users if a user has a file open in AutoCAD 2008

Asked by: stevencUK

Very strange thing is happening here.

We have a Windows 2008 Server running as the DC and as a file server.  The client PCs are a mix of Win XP pro and Vista Business.

All the affected users are running AutoCAD 2008 full or LT.

If user A has a drawing open in AutoCAD then every other user suffers an extreme slow down in accessing the folder on the server that the drawing is stored in. It can literally take 30 seconds for explorer to show the list of files in the folder.

All other folders on the server are fine to access so long as another user doesn't have a drawing open within it.  This includes any folders in the tree above the one you are wanting to access.

I have done some tests and established that it is only AutoCAD that causes the problem.  PDFs, Excel sheets, Word docs etc do not cause the slowdown problems at all.

Our other server is also 2008 and runs Exchange 2007.  There appears to be no issues accessing this server for email.

This issue only seems to have appeared since we moved to Server 2008.  There didn't appear to be a problem when we were on our old SBS 2003 server.

Server hardware is an HP DL380 with 2GHz dual core processor and 4GB RAM with the main data share running off a RAID 5 system.  Over 90GB free space and very low defragmentation.

PC hardware is typically HP or Dell PCs with 3GHz processor and 1 or 2GB RAM.

The network is CAT5e and is running at 1GHz for most connections.

If anybody could help me track this down it would be very much appreciated.

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Asked On
2009-08-28 at 02:37:57ID24689205
Tags

AutoCAD2008

,

Server 2008

,

slow access

Topics

AutoCAD Software

,

Windows Server 2008

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: mrrooniePosted on 2009-08-28 at 02:52:12ID: 25206036

just a thought - is cad set to autosave back to the server every few minutes? if so you could try setting it to auto save to a local folder. i cant imagine the autosave would create too  much network traffic but you never know with Microsoft

 

by: stevencUKPosted on 2009-08-28 at 03:30:36ID: 25206212

Auto saves are done to the local PC so I don't think thats the cause.

Having done a bit more digging, if I open a folder that contains a drawing I know another user is working on it will take 10-30 secs to bring up the folder contents.  This is either in explorer or going through ACAD.

Once I get the folder open, if I try to bring up the properties of a drawing that is not in use, it shows me them fairly quickly, not as quickly as in files that are in folders not in use by ACAD but within 10 secsonds typically.

However if I try to get the properties of the file that is open by another user it starts taking an age again, and specifically I notice that if I try this on either of the lock files (DWL and DWL2 extensions) it takes the same upto 30 secs and sometimes longer.  It even takes upto 30 secs to bring up the right click menu before I can even click on the properties option.  I have double checked this with a word document and the same issues do not occur.

Very very strange.

 

by: mrrooniePosted on 2009-08-28 at 03:48:20ID: 25206286

after a quick google a few people are saying if the cad's search for digital signatures is disabled it considerably slows network access.... is yours disabled?

 

by: mrrooniePosted on 2009-08-28 at 03:50:49ID: 25206296

sorry - id the signatures are ENABLED it slows the network down, so disable them if you can.

Right Click on a DWG file and click enable/disable Digital Signatures. Uncheck the box and reboot. if you have loads (and i imagine you do) there may be a script to run to do the bulk for you

 

by: stevencUKPosted on 2009-08-28 at 04:33:51ID: 31621631

Problem does appear to stem from the digital signature options that you pointed me to.

A further google on the net showed me that You can run:

c:\windows\system32\AcSignOpt.exe and uncheck the box.  This appears to perform the setting change globally.

After making the change and rebooting the issue appears to have gone away.

Fingers crossed this has got this issue off my back for good.

Many many thanks for your help.

Steve

 

by: mrrooniePosted on 2009-08-28 at 04:37:07ID: 25206484

glad to have helped, or at least point you in the right direction

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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