Speed up Adobe Acrobat 6.0's load time

This drives me bonkers (and it is not really related to Exchange). Acrobat 6.0 takes nearly 30 seconds to load on my sluggish (and old) laptop. The problem: Adobe went hog-wild with plug-ins and extensions to make Acrobat better, stronger, faster, and to compete with Microsoft's new document reader. All these plug-ins take time to load-up, though, especially on laptops or slower machines.

I think everyone in the civilized world knows about this, but I figured I would blog it anyway since I'm always having to tweak another computer.

1. Open up the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader folder
2. Create a folder called Optional in that folder if it is not there already
3. Move the contents of the Plug_ins folder to the Optional folder
4. Ta da!

The plug-ins will still load, they just load on-demand, since they are in the optional folder. If you use a particular plug-in with every PDF document you load, then go ahead and move that one back to the Plug_ins folder.

Thanks to Matt T. and Cameron P. for reminding me about this feature back in the fall. I keep forgetting about it.

Microsoft releases next beta of Windows AntiSpyware

The next version of the Windows AntiSpyware is available for download. Reports I'm hearing from the folks that are testing this say the previous version is better than SpyBot and Adaware.

Bargains, deals, freebies, and geek toys

Okay, as if I can't keep up with ONE blog, I have started another. Bargains, goodies, gadgets, geek tools, freebies, and cool stuff. I was bored this weekend. I'm going to post stuff about good deals and neat gadgets. And, yes, if there is a link to a product, then it will usually include a referral code. I doubt it will make any money, but I had never set up any referral stuff except for Amazon.

Exchange Event ID 1221 represents ONLY the white space in the EDB file

After a recent posting here, someone asked me about Event ID 1221 and if that is the total amount of white space (free space) in both the EDB and the STM files. I had to do some research and ask around to get a definitive answer (thanks Andy D. for confirming!). Plus, as usual, I tested it on a test server. Here is a cut-and-paste copy of an event from one of my test servers:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event Category: General
Event ID: 1221
Date: 2/20/2005 Time: 1:03:37 AM
User: N/AComputer: KILAUEA
Description:The database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)" has 1312 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.

The message insinuates that there is 1312MB of free space in the store, but in reality there is 1312MB of free space in the EDB file only. The STM file is NOT reported. This is true for both Exchange 2000 and 2003. No word on whether Exchange 12 will address this.

However, if you run an offline compaction (ESEUTIL /D), this defrags both the EDB file and the STM file.

Digitally signed and encrypted messages hold in the Pending Submission queue on Exchange 2003

Mi compadre Aran sent me an e-mail the other day asking me why some messages on some of the servers we help support are not being delivered. The users were receiving delay notifications:

Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Delay)
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.
Delivery to the following recipients has been delayed.

I was pretty confused about why this is happening, but by the time I could respond, Aran had tracked down the problem. This can happen when an Exchange-aware antivirus software package is installed and the Transport Scanning feature is enabled. The Transport Scanning feature of the AVAPI 2.5 API allows scanning of messages not only in the store, but also when it is going through SMTP.

In this customer's case, Symantec Mail Security for Exchange had the SMTP Transport Scanning enabled. This was the only way we could get Symantec to do some of the Anti-Spam things we wanted it to do. (In hindsight, I wish I had put Symantec Mail Security on the front-end/bridgehead servers and Trend ScanMail on the mailbox servers instead).

KB 842801 Digitally signed messages remain in the Messages pending submission queue and are not delivered in Exchange 2003 outlines the fix for problem. You can either turn off the transport scanning feature or call PSS and get the hot fix.

EDB and STM files grow continually - Part 3

I have been involved in a couple of cases where the Exchange EDB and STM files have continually grown much faster than expected, even when users are regularly deleting their old mail and emptying their Deleted Items folders.

Deleted items and deleted mailboxes are purged nightly during online maintenance. The online mainteance interval is set (by default) daily between 1:00AM and 5:00AM. This is set on the Database property page for EACH mailbox store.

Note: Online backups WILL halt online maintenance on all stores in the storage group, so schedule online backups to occur so that it does not conflict with online maintenance.

Online maintenance should run at least once per day on all stores in a server. How can you tell if online maintenace is running? The following informational events should be logged in the event viewer's application log for each mailbox store. These are from one of my test servers called KILAUEA.

Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store Event Category: General Event ID: 1206 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:15:01 AMUser: N/A
Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Starting cleanup of items past retention date for Item Recovery on database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)".

Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store Event Category: General Event ID: 1207 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:15:01 AM User: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Cleanup of items past retention date for Item Recovery is complete for database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)". Start: 23 items; 158 KbytesEnd: 19 items; 88 Kbytes

Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store Event Category: General Event ID: 9531 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:15:01 AM User: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Starting cleanup of deleted mailboxes that are past the retention date on database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)".

Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store Event Category: General Event ID: 9535 Date: 2/15/2005Time: 1:15:01 AMUser: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Cleanup of deleted mailboxes that are past the retention date is finished on database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)". 3 deleted mailboxes (27,201 KB) have been removed. 2 deleted mailboxes (17,282 KB) have been retained.


Event Source: ESE Event Category: Online Defragmentation Event ID: 700 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:15:01 AM User: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Information Store (3004) First Storage Group: Online defragmentation is beginning a full pass on database 'C:\DATA\E2K3-Data\priv1.edb'.

Event Source: ESE Event Category: Online Defragmentation Event ID: 701 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:18:02 AM User: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:Information Store (3004) First Storage Group: Online defragmentation has completed a full pass on database 'C:\DATA\E2K3-Data\priv1.edb'.

Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store Event Category: General Event ID: 1221 Date: 2/15/2005 Time: 1:18:02 AM User: N/A Computer: KILAUEA
Description:The database "First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (KILAUEA)" has 18 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation has terminated.

Hedy Lamar and Digital Spread Spectrum

One of my favorite factoids involves the 1940's actress/bombshell Hedy Lamar. Hedy was apparently she was more than a pretty face. In the 1940's, she and George Antheil envisioned using radio waves to transmit digital data rather in addition to analog data. They termed this the Secret Communications Technique, but it is now commonly known as Digital Spread Spectrum.

Unfortuntely, Hedy and George were way ahead of their time. It was not until the 1980's that commerical applications existed that could take advantage of it (such as cordless phones, cell phones, and cable modems).

EDB and STM files grow continually - Part 2

I promised I would continue to report on a couple of situtations in which I have found the EDB and STM files have continued to grow in spite of the fact that users are reporting that they have been deleting mail from their mailboxes.

In another site, we found that examining the mailbox sizes in Exchange System Manager that the mailboxes were all relatively small, yet the store was very large.

On the limits property page, the deleted item cache was set to 7 days and the checkbox that tells Exchange not to purge deleted messages and deleted mailboxes until a full-backup has been run was checked. This was a clue.

Does it sounds like the online backup was not running? If you were thinking that, that is a good catch. I asked the system manager about whether the nightly backup was running and she said that it was running fine. Upon further investigation, though, I found that the database was on a NetApp Filer and the backup was run by the NetApp SnapShot Manager for Exchange. When running on Windows 2000 with Exchange 2000 or 2003, the database is not flagged as being successfully backed up after the snapshot.

So, Exchange online maintenance was not cleaning up the deleted items and deleted mailboxes. Once we cleared this checkbox, the deleted items began to be cleaned up, but it still took almost 2 weeks for the amount of deleted items to be cleaned up, though.

You can add an additional column to the Exchane System Manager's view of the mailbox store called Deleted Items (KB) that shows the size of deleted items that each mailbox owns. (These do not count against the user's storage limits.)

You can also view the total amount of space the store is using for deleted items using the Performance Monitor's Logs and Alerts System Monitor console. This counter is found under the MSExchangeMailbox object.

Dell 24" Widescreen UltraSharp 2405FPW Flat Panel - Under $1,200!!!

I'm getting chills! I am currently in the market for a new flat panel monitor. I currently have two 19" flat panels using Windows XP's multi-monitor feature. I don't know how I managed to write and research before I had multiple monitors, but I love them!

One of the monitors is going south; it currently takes about 30 minutes to 'warm up' and become usable, so I have been looking. At one of my jobs, I got a spiffy new Dell 20.1" flat panel and had just about decided to get one of those. Then, I started looking at the Samsung 213T wide, flat panel.

However, I have been reading about a new Dell flat panel that is about to come on the market. It is the Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW. This is a 24", wide screen, flat-panel monitor with on onboard media hub (CF, SD, xD, etc...) and a 4-port USB hub. How much? It sounds like it is going to cost around $1,200 (retail). This monitor is supposed to be released around mid-March. More details can be found here.

The real power players at work all have 24" Sun Microsystems flat panels that are VERY nice! Unfortunately, I'm not a power player, so I only get to use one on the lab occasionally. These monitors were costing nearly $4000 a few years ago! So, this is going to change the landscape of the desktop for people that are ready to invest a little more for a monitor.

So, I'm eagerly awaiting this new toy! Hooaah!

Virtual memory fragmentation in Exchange (Event Id 9582)

I preach and I whine and I write and I advise, yet still, I hear about this and see this in production regularly. Event ID 9582 pops up (possibly even hourly) showing a warning (or worse an error) advising you that virtual memory is fragmented and performance may be affected. Some admins have even reported to me that they have to reboot Exchange once a week. Below is two samples of these events (schmoozed directly from KB 883527)

Event ID: 9582
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeIS
Event Category: Performance
Event ID: 9582
Description: The virtual memory necessary to run your Exchange server is fragmented in such a way that normal operation may begin to fail. It is highly recommended that you restart all Exchange services to correct this issue.

Event ID: 9582
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeIS
Event Category: PerformanceEvent ID: 9582
Description: The virtual memory necessary to run your Exchange server is fragmented in such a way that performance may be affected. It is highly recommended that you restart all Exchange services to correct this issue.

This is happening because Exchange 2000 or 2003 is running on Windows on a machine with more than 1GB of RAM. This is easily fixed if you are running Windows 2003, see KB 823440. If you are running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, see KB 8328882. If you are running Windows 2000 Datacenter and this is not configured, you need to fire the "qualified" person that set it up for you. If you are running Windows 2000 Server, you need to re-install the OS (not upgrade) to Windows 2000 Advanced Server. Or better yet, upgrade to Exchange 2003, then upgrade the OS to Windows 2003 Server or higher. Then, follow the advice in KB 823440.