Speed of opening messages (esp w/attachments)

[esmithbda]

We just upgraded to Exchange 2K3 on Win2k3 - we had planned on doing it, but over a slower time period - a recent problem forced us to do it over two days instead.

One side effect that we are now seeing with all of our users on the new machine is that some of them, when viewing the same message (it is a message that has several Excel documents attached to it - maybe 8 that are each about 200-600K in size - it was sent from an outside client to a few of our users) the message is slow to open.

If they have auto-preview on, then even though they have selected a message, it takes up to 45 seconds to display in the preview pane.
If they click on the message to open it, it takes the same amount of time to open it.

I don't have the same message sent to me, but all of my messages open very quickly, regardless of any attachments (even several megs of attachments).

Any ideas on what might cause this?

 

[xmsre]

You are most likely experiencing the joys of promotion to the edb. The inbound message in SMTP or MIME format must be converted to MAPI format on promotion to the edb. This conversion process takes place in the system temp directory, in C:\windows\temp by default. If the system volume is busy, this can get ugly. Fortunately, it only happens once per item per mailbox. To help minimize the pain, you could redirect your system temp folder to a location on a seperate spindle or set of spindles. If you have a clustered back end, do not relocate to a shared resource. Other applications depend on the system temp directly and won't appriciate it when it fails over to the other node. Use a local drive.

 

[esmithbda]

xmsre - that sounds like that must be the case - thanks for your excellent explanation.

We are a very small company (20 or so users) so our Exchange server hardware, which new and fast to us, is nothing amazing.
We set up the two drives in it to mirror - but it sounds like I should add a third drive solely for cache files.
When we were setting it up, I suggested that to the consultant, but he didn't seem to think it would be an issue.
Fortunately we have at least one drive handy that we can use - although it is about 60gigs and perhaps a bit overkill in this particular case.

Again - thanks for the tip!

 

[blkj]

I had 1 PC out of 50 doing this last week.
It turned out he had Instant Messaging Enabled in Outlook (tools --> options --> other)
I disabled IM and he now previews and opens at the same pace of everone else.

 

[esmithbda]

I've checked all of my workstations and none of them have IM enabled in Outlook.

If I add a seperate hardware drive and point the system temp directory to that drive, that should resovle the issue right?

I apologize for the basic question - but where is the setting to change where the system temp drive is pointed? (for Win2k3)
I want to come in this weekend and add the new hardware drive and then redirect the system temp directory to be housed on that drive to help with this problem.

 

[esmithbda]

Nevermind, found it (for XP, assuming the same in 2k3) under:
My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Enviroment Variables > System Variables (bottom)