HELP: Word locks up terminal session.

[Patrick M. Ring]

We need some help, please.

My company has recently upgraded a local school to Windows Server 2003 and
we've licensed it for Terminal Service usage. Once we had the basic
terminal service installed, we installed Office XP Professional (via the
Add/Remove Programs since the server is in "Application Mode").

The terminal sessions seem to work fine except for when a student is in Word
and goes to save a document (using home folder mapped to V, the session
hangs up. After a while these disconnected sessions build up and clog the
virtual memory.

My question is: What might I need to do to stop this?

We have upgraded Office to the latest service pack (2 w/ hotfixes for Word
and Excel), and Server 2003 has all critical updates installed (via Windows
Update). As well, I have checked the securities on the Office program
folder and the .exe's (all are set for read/execute for all authenticated
users).

The only thing I can think of is possibly a setting in the Group Policies
for the Students' OU in AD having to do with hiding the "My Network Places"
icon on the desktop. However, when I looked at these settings yesterday,
none of my settings were present... they were all listed as "not defined;"
even though the sessions for the students still have the proper secure items
blocked etc.

Any suggestions will be very appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Patrick M. Ring

 

[Cláudio Rodrigues]

Is the server set for relaxed security?
Does the issue happen when using the administrator account?

--
Cláudio Rodrigues, MVP
Windows 2000/NT Server
Terminal Services

http://www.terminal-services.NET

-> The only Terminal Services Client for DOS.
-> The only customized RDP5.1 client with the close button disabled!
-> Developers of SecureRDP, the BEST security utility for TS!

Do NOT email me directly UNLESS YOU KNOW ME or you are a Microsoft
MVP/Employee.
Use my support page on my website to submit your questions directly.

 

[Patrick M. Ring]

No, the server is set for about what I'd call medium security. Not much was
relaxed and the Group Policies were used on the OU that the student accounts
exist in. There is one policy that I'm suspicious of, though. It is the
one that hides the "My Network Places" icon from the desktop. My suspicion
comes from an experience with the policy editor from Win 9X.... when you hid
the Network Neighborhood icon it disabled many UNC call functions; and since
the problem seems to occur when a student tries to save a document (to a
home folder mapped as the v: drive), I figure it could be similar.

I have checked the security settings on the /Program Files/Microsoft Office
directory and its children and the setting have read/execute for all
authenticated users.

While using the administrator account (mostly short tests...), I have not
been able to replicate this problem. As a matter of fact, while testing
only one or two test student logons, I have not been able to replicate it
either. It seems to happen while a classroom full of students are in the
system.

This evening I checked on the server and had about 40 or so sessions that
had apparently hung and each logon that was "disconnected" had a session of
WINWORD.EXE in the processes list (usually using about 13MB each with a
total page file of 1.8GB). While it is possible to "logout" the
disconnected users, the WINWORD.EXE processes would not let me end process.
....and when I went to restart the server, it became simply unresponsive
after Explorer.EXE was terminated. I let the system sit for 30 mins before
I was running out of time and had to just hard reset it (I hate doing that).

I hope this helps you to help me.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks in advance,
Patrick M. Ring