Tuning 2000/XP/.NET What should you tweak, and what should you replace? Presented by Mark Minasi author of Mastering Windows 2000 Server MR&D /

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Tuning 2000/XP/.NET What should you tweak, and what should you replace? Presented by Mark Minasi author of Mastering Windows 2000 Server MR&D /

Overview n Tools for tuning n Five tuning methods n Takin’ Out the Trash n Tuning disk subsystems n Tuning memory subsystems n Tuning CPUs n Tuning NICs

Tuning Tools n Performance Logs and Alerts (perfmon) – but don’t worry, you needn’t look at every single thing that Perfmon offers! n Task Manager n logman – command-line perfmon logger n Another excellent tool: Network Monitor (Netmon) n Some nifty free Sysinternals tools: pagedfrg, contig, Process Explorer n Msconfig

Meet Perfmon the Performance Monitor n You’ve probably looked at it before n Things are grouped into “objects” and objects are divided into “counters” n Example: things related to the CPUs are in an object called “processor” n Lets you either log info long-term or view in real time

Perfmon Tips n Use Perfmon on one computer to log another computer n Alerts can be useful, even if they’re simple n The key to using Perfmon is in finding a small number of things to log, and looking at them periodically Click the “Ask a question” button in the lower left section of your screen to submit a question.

Tuning Basics n The object of tuning is to find the bottleneck n Bottlenecks are where the computer spends most of its time, the binding constraint n File servers bottleneck in different places than applications servers n File servers bottleneck on the network card interface and the disk interface n App servers bottleneck on memory and CPU power

Five Tuning Solutions 1. Delete useless junk (programs that waste resources, unnecessary services) 2. Buy faster hardware 3. Reconfigure the hardware for better throughput (i.e., registry tweaks) 4. Clean resources 5. Move loads (apps) to other systems

Eliminating Junk n Fire up Task Manager and ask: What is all that stuff? n MSconfig32 can help n So can Process Explorer and Autoruns from n Then go after the services Click the “Ask a question” button in the lower left section of your screen to submit a question.

Autoruns from Sysinternals

Process Explorer

Killing Unnecessary Services n Workstation services: – Server/computer browser – Any Web/FTP server – Wireless Zero Configuration (unless 802.1x) – WebClient (unless you know you need it) – Infrared Monitor… and tons others; look your system over and experiment n Tune your personal firewall/antivirus software

Disk Tuning counters and solutions n Must use diskperf –y on W2k and reboot… but it’s no longer necessary on XP/.NET n You want to see: – Physical Disk / Percent disk time < 90 – Physical Disk / queue length <= 2 n Solutions: faster interfaces (UDMA-133) faster host adapters (SCSI), bus mastering (if it doesn’t already exist), move processes

Disk Tuning n If using two EIDE drives, put them on different channels n Use NTFS… not FAT32 n Defrag volumes periodically n Sysinternal’s “contig” will make a particular file contiguous n On an AD DC, defrag Active Directory with NTDSUTIL

Network Tuning what to watch n Network Interface/Output Queue Length <= 2 n Look for increases in Server object, counter – Blocking requests rejected – Errors system – Pool non-paged failures, pool paged failures – Sessions errored out n Rearrange binding order or provider order if you have multiple protocols n Kill unnecessary protocols

Memory Tuning pagefile optimization n Defrag pagefile with Sysinternals’ free pagedfrg.exe n You no longer need a pagefile >= RAM if you choose minidumps or kernel memory dumps n Spread pagefile over several physical drives n This, of course, only makes sense if those drives run asynchronously

Memory Tuning sizing pagefiles: general info n You cannot have too large of a pagefile – you don’t slow down your system; although, of course, you may burn too much disk space n Set maximum pagefile size = minimum n And provide space for crashdumps Click the “Ask a question” button in the lower left section of your screen to submit a question.

Memory Tuning sizing pagefiles: specifics n Size with XP’s Task Manager / Performance / Commit Charge (K) / Peak or log Perfmon’s Memory/Committed Bytes counter, take peak n Note that they may not match, as Perfmon and Taskman poll at different intervals n This will almost always be more than you’ll ever need – look at Paging File / % Usage Peak

Tuning CPUs perfmon counters n Processor counters; want to see: – percent CPU time < 80 percent – System/Processor Queue Length <= 2 on UP system n Run the histogram to find out who are the hogs And for heaven’s sake don’t run the silly 3D screensavers!

Thank you for attending! n You can find me at n Don’t forget the evaluations! n Free tech newsletter at n Seminar information also n Join our tech forum at

Audience Q&A Time for YOU to ask questions! Mark is now taking questions from the audience on Tuning and Monitoring XP Win2k & Net Server. Click the “Ask a question” button in the lower left section of your screen to submit a question.

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