Why is XP slower accessing 98SE peer?

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9as?=]

Howdy, y'all; recently, an XPPro machine replaced a 98SE
box in our peer-to-peer network, which consists of
several clients sharing Paradox tables (version 4.5 for
DOS) on a file "server". Protocol is TCP/IP, with
addresses provided by DHCP from a Linksys router.
Everything works as expected, but for some reason the new
XPPro box seems to take twice as long to retrieve records
from the shared tables as did the 98SE box, and users are
complaining. Suspecting spurious network traffic between
the XP box and the file server, I tested with a packet
sniffer, but didn't see anything unusual. I tested a
second XP box with the same DOS Paradox app and the
packet sniffer, and saw pretty much the same Server
Message Block protocol packets.

What would cause DOS file-sharing apps to be slower on an
XP box? I saw an article about disabling optimistic
locking (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=kb;en-us;296264) and modified the registry, but
didn't observe an improvement.

TIA for your help.

 

[Chuck]

Howdy, y'all; recently, an XPPro machine replaced a 98SE
box in our peer-to-peer network, which consists of
several clients sharing Paradox tables (version 4.5 for
DOS) on a file "server". Protocol is TCP/IP, with
addresses provided by DHCP from a Linksys router.
Everything works as expected, but for some reason the new
XPPro box seems to take twice as long to retrieve records
from the shared tables as did the 98SE box, and users are
complaining. Suspecting spurious network traffic between
the XP box and the file server, I tested with a packet
sniffer, but didn't see anything unusual. I tested a
second XP box with the same DOS Paradox app and the
packet sniffer, and saw pretty much the same Server
Message Block protocol packets.

What would cause DOS file-sharing apps to be slower on an
XP box? I saw an article about disabling optimistic
locking (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
scid=kb;en-us;296264) and modified the registry, but
didn't observe an improvement.

TIA for your help.

Andreas,

I had good results with changing the Provider Order (Settings - Network
Connections - Advanced - Advanced Settings - Provider Order). Reorder Network
Providers in the sequence:
Microsoft Windows Network
Web Client Network
Microsoft Terminal Services

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Guest]

Thanx for your suggestion, Chuck. Unfortunately, no
improvement.

I've read that many users report XP-98SE slower network
performance; e.g. http://briansbuzz.com/w/030619/. Is
this something that the XP development team is working on?

I'd like to know for certain, so that if possible, I can
end this wild goose chase.

TIA.

 

[Chuck]

Thanx for your suggestion, Chuck. Unfortunately, no
improvement.

I've read that many users report XP-98SE slower network
performance; e.g. http://briansbuzz.com/w/030619/. Is
this something that the XP development team is working on?

I'd like to know for certain, so that if possible, I can
end this wild goose chase.

Nothing is for certain. What works for me may not work for you; and what works
for you may not work for your neighbor.

You need to read the article, see if anything it suggests is applicable to your
network, and if possible, try the suggestions. If you have a hub, replacing it
with a switch is something I would assume everybody knows, so I would never
think to suggest.

The article reminded me of two other possibilities.
1) Check the media settings for your network cards. Network cards with auto
speed detection, connected to switches with the same, may not perform well.
Setting my network cards to 100 Mbps Full duplex (from Auto select) made a
noticeable improvement in my file copies from computer to computer.
2) I have seen forum discussions about name resolution (dns / wins) on the
network causing performance problems.

The browser setup on your network could contribute to problems too. I'm not
talking about Internet Explorer either.

The Microsoft Browstat program will show us what browsers you have in your
domain / workgroup, at any time.
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=188305>

You can download Browstat from:
<http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip>
<http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip>

Browstat is very small (40K), needs no install, and runs from the command
prompt. Just drop it onto a couple workstations, and run it.

It's all detective work. Get your hands dirty.

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9as?=]

Thanx again for the tips, Chuck.

I decided to get my hands dirty by using Ethereal to
capture packet traffic between an XPPro client and a 98SE
file server, as well as a 98SE client, and the same 98SE
server. Objective here is to determine why Paradox 4.5
(for DOS) is slower under XP than 98SE.

While capturing, I did exactly the same things at the
98SE client as I did with the XP client. I observed that
Pdox uses the Server Message Block protocol to
communicate with a file server, and, surprisingly, the
packets are different. For example, in retrieving a list
of all files in a server directory, the SMB search
request from the 98SE client to the server looks
like "F:\<dir-spec>\????????.???", whereas the request
from the XP client looks like "F:\<dir-spec>\>>>>>>>>.DB".

So, maybe the simple answer is that XP supports DOS apps
with SMB and NetBIOS differently (with API functions that
are called the same way, but behave differently) than
does 98SE. Whaddya think?

TIA.

APJ.

 

[GTS]

Andreas,

I've been following your thread with some interest, having had a similar
problem with a client with a Win 2K Server where replacing a Win 98
workstation with and much higher end Win XP computer resulted in slow
performance and problems with database operations (including "delayed write
issues" possibly related to SMB signing).

I don't know if it will help but you might be interested in this KB article
"The Advantages of Direct Hosting of SMB over TCP/IP"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315267&Product=winxp
which discusses XP's use of SMB.
Also, see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;842792&Product=winxp
which addresses a different problem but explains how to disable SMB signing
on XP with a registry change.

Is NetBIOS enabled on the XP machine? If not, you might see if enabling it
has any effect. If already enabled or doesn't help, you might try turning
off SMB signing on the XP machine and seeing what that does.

Please let us know the results.

GTS

 

[Guest]

Thanx for your note, GTS. Yeah, I had seen the articles
that you referred to, and when I attempted to disable
NetBIOS, I lost my connection to the shared volume on the
98SE file server.

I checked the SMB signing bit, and it's disabled.

As I wrote in a previous post, I've been using Ethereal
to examine packets exchanged between the XP client, the
98SE file server, and another 98SE client. Doing exactly
the same thing at both of the test clients results in
different packet formats, comparing XP to 98SE. I wonder
if it has something to do with the way that XP provides
DOS support. Maybe it's simply less efficient than 98SE
because of emulation, or something like that. Wish that I
knew fer sure. Gonna keep digging, but I've already
invested quite a bit of time in trying to solve this, and
not much progress so far.

APJ.