ESXi 5.1 and Windows XP compatability

[JUMBO23]

Hello all,

I recently introduced an ESXi host into a customers environment and moved those physical servers on to it. One of these servers was a file server. I created a new VM running 2008 R2 and moved all data/file shares over to this VM.

I'm now receiving feedback from users running Windows XP that running some applications are now slower than they were before. Windows 7/8 users don't seem to be affected

I have remoted onto a Windows XP desktop and can see that it takes four minutes to copy over a 300Mb folder. On a Windows 7 desktop machine it takes 30 seconds

If I copy the same folder from the file server to the Windows XP machine it takes 30 or 40 seconds

I have restarted the file server, made sure the vmtools are running. I have updated the NIC driver on the XP machine, tried switching between 100Mb and auto detect all without success (The network is a 100Mb network)

Has anyone experienced anything similar or may have ideas where to look next? I am running the E1000 network driver on the file server

Thanks

Simon

[Linjo]

I would rather suspect the move to Windows Server 2008R2 to be the problem.

What was the copy speed before the move?

// Linjo

[JUMBO23]

The data was moved off a physical SBS 2011 server, which effectively runs 2008 r2 and moved on to a virtual 2008 r2 machine, so I can't think that was it

[Linjo]

I would say its more unlikely to be a vSphere-problem since the Windows 7 clients work fine.

It should be easy to troubleshoot and get closer to the issue with some simple experiments.

// Linjo

[Cyberfed27]

This may be related to SMB2 on server 2008. You can try to disable it.

[jdptechnc]

I think it is likely an SMB2 issue as well; the symptoms do not lie.  What else is different between the SBS system and the new VM?

I've seen things such as a minor update to A/V software cause issues when oplocks are also enabled on the file server when using SMB2.  XP clients weren't affected because SMB1 will be negotiated due to XP not supporting SMB2.

[Josh26]

JUMBO23 wrote:

Has anyone experienced anything similar or may have ideas where to look next? I am running the E1000 network driver on the file server

Thanks

Simon

Why?

First best practise here would be to blow away that NIC and add a vmxnet3 NIC. I'd be interested in how that goes.

VMware in general doesn't appreciate 100Mbit networks, it's time to consider upgrading.