W2K Server sloooooow shutdown

[sandmanx]

I've got one of my Windows 2000 servers that takes about 15 minutes to shutdown. There is a fair amount of services on it, but I wanted to see if there are any ideas to get it to reboot a bit faster. The machine is:

2 x P3-1GHz(coppermine EB's)
1.4GB PC133(regged,ecc) Ram
36 GB 10K SCSI drive
On board Ultra 160m controller

And this is what is running on it currently:
AD Controller
DNS
DHCP
WINS
Exchange Server 2000
Groupshield 5.0 (scans incoming emails for viruses)
GFI MailEssentials (spam killer)

The machine can take P3-1.4 Tualtin-S CPU's, but I don't think that would be very cost effective. I could move the spam killer to another server, but they are rather loaded as well already. I wanted to see if there is anything that could be done to get the current machine to shut down faster, before I go and get shot down trying to buy new hardware. :rolleyes:

[MorfiusX]

Your problem is that your are running AD and Exchange on the same server. This is a bad idea. Each one of those are capable of bringing an ageing system to its knees.

I would put Exchange on another server along with the email related tasks. You'll probably see a huge increase in performance.

I have a "test" server that's only a P3 800. I was testing 2003 AD and Exchange 2003. It was crying for mercy by the time I got done with it.

[Yoblad]

Yeah, I don't think anything's wrong with your server. The problem is that you're running Exchange and AD on it. Nothing else you have loaded would really make it slow down in shutdown.

edit: It seems this has already been said :o

[UMCPWintermute]

Another thing to check is that you're not clearing the pagefile on shutdown - that will add a good 10 minutes to a system's shutdown time.

In gpedit:

Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile.

[MorfiusX]

Another thing to check is that you're not clearing the pagefile on shutdown - that will add a good 10 minutes to a system's shutdown time.

In gpedit:

Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options

Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile.

10 minutes? When it clears the pagefile when you shutdown, it only deletes the entry for the file in the file table of the HD. It doesn't "erase" the file, just the pointer to it. So, this only takes a second or so. The only thing that this would affect is startups where a new one will get created and initialized.

[UMCPWintermute]

10 minutes? When it clears the pagefile when you shutdown, it only deletes the entry for the file in the file table of the HD. It doesn't "erase" the file, just the pointer to it. So, this only takes a second or so. The only thing that this would affect is startups where a new one will get created and initialized.

From my experiences, it does a lot more than simply deleting the file pointer - it actually writes over the data, clearing the file. From a security standpoint (and that's what clearing the pagefile is supposed to help with), it'd be kind of pointless to just delete the file pointer.

I have experienced the extra-long-shutdowns after making the only change of telling Windows to clear my pagefile on shutdown - startups don't take any longer than normal.

[S1nF1xx]

From my experiences, it does a lot more than simply deleting the file pointer - it actually writes over the data, clearing the file. From a security standpoint (and that's what clearing the pagefile is supposed to help with), it'd be kind of pointless to just delete the file pointer.

*cough* Correct *cough*

;)

[Phoenix86]

Not only does it take forever and a day to delete the file, it will get regenerated on boot. OK, well if your volume is fragmented, and there isn't contigous free space, your new page file will be fragmented as well. This will hurt pereformance a lot.

Of course, if you have a partition setup just for this, you won't generate a fragmented PF, but if any other data shares that volume, it likely will. The more you reboot, the more fragments you will get on the new PF.

[Sid]

Its not so much AD and Exchange on the same box. I find the second a server is promoted to a DC of any kind it takes forever for it to shut down whether exchange is on it or not. From what I understand its trying to notify the other controllers on the network that its going down and if there are no other controllers it will continue to try till it times out.

I maybe wrong on this but this is what someone from Technet told me once.