Windows 2003 server = slow network... help!

I set up a new server for this doctor I do work for and now all the XP workstations take about 20 - 30 seconds to browse the shares! Funny thing is, when you access the share drives with explorer and expand the share drives on the left pane, the folders show up immediately there, but on the right pane, the flashlight icon shows up looking for the folders.

The server is a brand new Dell - Celeron D 2.53ghz, 512MB, 80GB SATA HDD w/ the OS, SATA RAID 1 array using 2 160GB HDDs, and everything is connected over a 100Mb network. It is running Windows Server 2003.

When the previous machine (a crappy Compaq P2-400 server running Win2k server, SCSI HD w/ the OS, and an IDE drive with the data) was being used, the network functioned fine.

I've tried a few registry hacks that are supposed to address this problem as well as disabling the WebClient server and messing around with the folder options in Explorer. The only thing I have left to do is to update the workstations to SP2.

Does this seem like a problem with the server or networking issues between XP and 2003 Server? Once again, the XP boxes did not do this with the Win2k server...

Thanks

 

Hmm, make sure you're running a local DNS server on that w2k3 server. And that the XP workstations are pointing to its IP for their Primary DNS.

Good luck,

-K

 

All that is done...

Like I said, when browsing the mapped drives, the folders show up immediately in the left pane, but take about 20 seconds to load up on the right pane. This is on all the machines in the office as well as on a laptop that was brought in to test the network.

 

The directory had over 5,000 folders, so I ended up making a bunch of smaller directories and sorting them by name. Everything works much faster and the client is happy. Yay