Fast_Blue_Scooby

My laptop connected to the lan at work is starting to frustrate me!!

It connects to the network at startup, it takes quite some time, 5 mins or so while it checks security levels etc. This I can cope with. However when I am using any software such as Word, Excel or indeed any package, it becomes extremely slow when trying to open a file. The problem is not the time spent loading the file, that is quick, it is the wait for the pulldown menu to complete!

I click on open file say within Excel, click the down arrow on the tab which should show all the drives, both local and on the network and I have to wait 2 minutes before anything comes back. Then everything is okay from then on, the file loads quickly from the network drive and I can continue as normal, no problem with saving. It is just this initial open that is doing my head in. If I come out of excel or whatever and then go back in, I get the same problem, it takes forever to show me the network drives again on the open menu.

Please can someone tell me what to do to fix this problem! It does look like Windows 2000 is always checking the network connections each and everytime, when it doesn't need to. Once I am connected to the lan that is it, I never get logged out, it becomes a permanent connection but why the delay in the open menu's??

Thanks in advance and if anyone can help me fix this problem, I would be very grateful.....

Jer

Some things I would check.

Check your DNS settings
Disable your virus software
Delete your print drivers

It sounds as if the DNS settings are wrong I had this problem a few weeks ago.

Cheers

Jeremy

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

My vote your dns is pants. Most common cause of slowdown that I come across with 2k worstations/servers.

Fast_Blue_Scooby

What do I need to change?

I've checked around the office and everyone who has W2K has this problem. The pc slows down when trying to open a file as it checks the connection with the lan each and everytime. Is there a way to switch this check off?

Thanks.

P80SJW

If your network is anything like mine you will need to make sure that your clients primary dns server in the Domain Controller which is also a DNS Server, Thats assuming you are running a W2K domain.

Cheers

Si.

Foot_Tapper

W2k has the ability to check network connection speed;
(i dont know what actually does this), this seems to slow network connectivity down.
Does your IT department know of the problem ???
If they do, then i wouldnt bother messing with tcpip settings, if you change the configuration such that it doesnt network at all, and you have to get them to fix it , they wont be best pleased.
If you have local admin rights to the laptop, you could try the following.
Open windows explorer, make a note of your mapped drives.
ie H: \\servernam\sharename

open a command prompt...type in the following , ping "servername of first network drive" this should return something like
20.22.2.63 make a note of this as well.
Do this for all network drives.
go to the location of a file called hosts.
located in c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc

edit this file with notepad, to add all the drives and ip address, there is an example in the hosts file already, but it will look like this
20.22.2.63 servername
20.22.2.64 servername2
etc etc
when finished save hosts file and close.

This will help overcome shortcomings of your system trying to resolve the names of the servers and shares, that DNS and possibly WINS is having a problem with.