Problem with Excel on network

[Ratatapa]

Strange problems i have some user in 1 company that are having problems saving excel documents to the network

They are using 2003 and 2007 version of excel, and when they save a file to a network drive (save as or normal save) takes a good 20seconds to save.

But if they do word or notepad or any other software it's instant

Also if they save their .xls file to a local place exemple C: it's also instant

[Yabby]

Well if it is just that one user you know its a local problem correct? Or is everyone on that network having the same problems?

[Ratatapa]

There is at least 15 people with the problem

Server is 2003 standard and PC are using XP pro SP3

[Yabby]

What type of virus scanner is running on the xp box's? Just to test it out i would turn it off and try to save. Might have something to do with real time scanning.

[Ratatapa]

ESET nod32

But the strange thing is that we have 6 compagnies that are configured the same

Server : 2003
Client : XP
AV : ESET nod32 and only 1 compagny has the problem


Found alot of info on google but none works lol

[Yabby]

Only thing i can think of is use something like wireshark and see if there is anything else going on during a save that might clog the network. You said if they save to a local file it is fast, what happens if they save the file local, then transfer it over instead of saving over the network.

[Ratatapa]

Works #1 but they don't want to do that

[Yabby]

Which works? The virus scanner thing or the saving to local/transfer.

[Ratatapa]

Oh sorry the copy from local to network works full speed

It's just inside the program that bugs

[Yabby]

I think its shows this is beyond my scope, but the only thing i can think of is the virus scanner is having problems sending the file over without it being saved/closed. If you tested saving it without AV up and it works that should prove it, but i've never worked with NOD32 myself. Might be a way to force it not to scan excel files. If it still lags with it down, its something with excel its self and might try updating it? Other than that i'm at a loss.

[Icari]

i am not an expert here, but it may have to do with the size of the spreadsheet that they are trying to save on the network vs the size of the text file trying to be saved on the network. an excel spreadsheet is going to be many times larger then the text file and will therefore take longer to transfer.

[Ratatapa]

The spreadshit is usually like 3-4mbs max and we run at 1gbits on LAn so I doubt it

[Ratatapa]

so no ideas i'm at lost here

[Icari]

are you sure the network adapter/card on the clients machines have the most updated drivers? are they running CPU heavy applications at the same time as doing this transfer?

I have been doing some network tests at work and all the above can/will effect the speed your packets are sent. The more CPU load the slower the packets are sent, also not having the most updated drivers or using in-box drivers will slow down the speed as well.

[Ratatapa]

CPus are almost always at 0-10%

And yes the nwtwork are up to date

[SephYuyX]

Didnt really see if this was said, but is this a company wide issue, or does it only happen to a few people?

If only a few people:
-Have a bad person log in to a PC thats working.
1) If the issue happens, you know the issue is tied to a specific user; this can be due to their login batch file, their credentials/policies, or anything else that your company has tied to individual users. Find out the commonalities between the affected people and go from there. You can double check by having a good person log on to a bad PC and see how it acts. It may be a local PC script thats causing the issue; reformat it if you have no leads on what it could be.
2) If the issue doesnt happen, you know the issue it tied to the machine, or it's connections. Firstly, replace that pc with a known working PC and try again, if it doesnt happen, it's an issue with the PC, if it does happen, theres a possibility there a problem with the ethernet connection on the wall, the wire behind the wall, or the connection on the router. If this is the case, you should be able to take the bad pc and replace a good PCs spot, and it should work fine. If it doesnt work fine, that means it's something to do with the user.
-Make note that it could also be human error, the people could be doing something dumb, and saving it some backasswards way.

If it happens to everyone:
-This is a much more extensive issue, however at the same time not due to it only affected xls files. As mentioned chances are it could be a virus scanner / whatever youre using issue; disable the program on both host and server PCs and see if it works. If it works fine, you know that you have a bad policy in place, fix it. If it doesnt work, re-enable the virus program and try something else. Be sure to check your local and user login scripts, there may be something there. Be sure to check your server policies, maybe it's handling xls files differently because of a policy that was created. Do you only have one server? Try saving an xls file to another server like your web, isa, exchange, or sql server; if the issue doesnt happen there, you know it's an issue with your file server.


It's a really odd issue, but it only boils down to a few things: User, Local PC, Server PC, Physical Connections, Scanners, Scripts, and Policies. Obviously thats pretty much the entire network, but that's still narrowed down quite a bit.

Ive probably forgotten something, but this should give you a start.

[Ratatapa]

1)Deactivate the AV doesn't fix the problems
2)Not every user has Office but everyone in that building that use office has that problem
3) Login script is used for all 6 companies (same same script) and the other compagnies that are in different network/bulding etc doesn't have that problem

[Cooleko]

Then start with other programs, disable/close all of them and try, if that doesnt work, double check the scripts.
Try manually setting a computer up on both ends (just the basic barebones).
Make sure that excel is not competing for ports (should be taken care of when you disable all other programs)
do admins have the same problem as users do?
Just be systematic and isolate one problem at a time till you find it out.

[Ratatapa]

Ya those are all basics and all of them failed

And yes admins have the same problems

[Bloodfire]

I know this may crazy as hell but try this:

Open notepad and copy and paste this into it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\E xcel]
"NetworkResiliency"=dword:00000001

save the file as: Excel Network Fix.reg and then open that file. Should ask if you want to import it to the registry, click yes.

See if that fixes the issue.

Test it somewhere though!! I ain't held responsible for damage to your network

Is there some sort of sharing conflict or something?
Is there enough space on the drive the user is saving to?
Maybe reinstall Office? or just Excel?

Also check these out from Microsoft:
Q212147

KB313937

Another idea i found:

A good workaround for this is to use a FileCopy macro. For my situation I had users save to a local storage near my Metaframe servers then use a File Copy macro I created. I assigned the Macro to a toolbar button. It reduced user time by several minutes. -David Jenkins, http://joshuabrauer.com/2006/02/slow...e-applicaitons