S
schadenfreude
Greetings,
I'm in the midst of migrating our users from Outlook 2000 to Outlook 2003.
The main feedback I'm getting, beyond the general UI disorientation, is that
2003 is slower than 2000. Indeed this appears to be true as I can load the
same mailbox on a 2000 machine and the responsiveness is much better than on
an identical machine with 2003.
Some backend info: Exchange 2003 running on an active / passive cluster.
The latency is particularly noticible when switching between folders.
Some things I've tried:
Cached Mode: While this provides some improvement it does not bring it back
to the level of a 2000 client. With very large mailboxes (3GB +) and a large
number of items(90K+), cached mode seems to cause a lot of disk thrashing as
it tries to read from the local ost. As well the ost appears to be easily
damaged and when starting up a message appears saying that the mailbox is
being repaired. This only serves to delay outlook from opening and alarm the
user who thinks their mailbox is corrupt (calls to help desk etc etc).
SP3 for office 2003: Again this appears to provide some relief but the
change might be purely psychological. In any event its not dramatic.
Plugins: We run none
Disabling CTFMon.exe and unregistering msctf.dll: Again nothing dramatic
but a slight possible improvement.
Disbaling IM and the user smart tags: same as above.
Deleting outcmd.dat: Provides some temporary improvement but slowness comes
back in time.
Now some of you might say, why do you have 3GB mailboxes with 90,000 items
in them? What don't you archive? Unfortunately archiving and strict and low
size limits are counter to the business requirements of my organization (huge
law firm).
So, is Outlook 2003 just slower than 2000? Is their some other client
configuration I can do to speed this up? changing view settings, anything?
I'll buy a beer (or beverage of choice) for the person who can make 2003 at
least as fast as 2000. I don't think there is a magic bullet for this but
here's hoping.
I'm in the midst of migrating our users from Outlook 2000 to Outlook 2003.
The main feedback I'm getting, beyond the general UI disorientation, is that
2003 is slower than 2000. Indeed this appears to be true as I can load the
same mailbox on a 2000 machine and the responsiveness is much better than on
an identical machine with 2003.
Some backend info: Exchange 2003 running on an active / passive cluster.
The latency is particularly noticible when switching between folders.
Some things I've tried:
Cached Mode: While this provides some improvement it does not bring it back
to the level of a 2000 client. With very large mailboxes (3GB +) and a large
number of items(90K+), cached mode seems to cause a lot of disk thrashing as
it tries to read from the local ost. As well the ost appears to be easily
damaged and when starting up a message appears saying that the mailbox is
being repaired. This only serves to delay outlook from opening and alarm the
user who thinks their mailbox is corrupt (calls to help desk etc etc).
SP3 for office 2003: Again this appears to provide some relief but the
change might be purely psychological. In any event its not dramatic.
Plugins: We run none
Disabling CTFMon.exe and unregistering msctf.dll: Again nothing dramatic
but a slight possible improvement.
Disbaling IM and the user smart tags: same as above.
Deleting outcmd.dat: Provides some temporary improvement but slowness comes
back in time.
Now some of you might say, why do you have 3GB mailboxes with 90,000 items
in them? What don't you archive? Unfortunately archiving and strict and low
size limits are counter to the business requirements of my organization (huge
law firm).
So, is Outlook 2003 just slower than 2000? Is their some other client
configuration I can do to speed this up? changing view settings, anything?
I'll buy a beer (or beverage of choice) for the person who can make 2003 at
least as fast as 2000. I don't think there is a magic bullet for this but
here's hoping.