Outlook and Performance

[Chris Marsh]

I have a client that has about 20 users of Outlook, a SQL database app and
QuickBooks. In the afternoons, after about 3pm the box is coming to a crawl
for almost 2 hours (that's when the users leave). The process is that the
database app prints a report to Word or PDF and then person X in the
warehouse must open Outlook, open the attachment and print the attachment.
This is a somewhat unique situation, most of my clients enter changes into
the SQL app and then they produce a report from the database app directly;
this model doesn't work for this client so they've adopted the approach of
emailing attachments to each department that has a change.

I have downloaded from systernals the taskman replacement and Outlook, Word
and the PDF's are what appear to be eating the processor usage. At first, I
thought it was RAM so I have 4GB in the box now with dual 2.8 Xeon
processors for about 20 users.

Also, what's extremely interesting is that with users sitting idle
(seriously, sitting in the employee lunch room) yet the users session is
bouncing from 0 > 25 CPU's in TaskManager. What could be triggering this?

Any suggestions on how I can alter the performance of Outlook?

Thanks

Chris

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Chris,

What version of Outlook are you using? Is there an Exchange server involved
or are they just working with PST files?

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Chris Marsh]

Aloha Ben,

Exchange 2003 on an SBS 2003 box which is pretty darn current on Service
Packs and updates. Thanks for the prompt reply!

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Chris,

Are the Outlook clients running in Cached mode? While the humans are in
the lunch room I assume Outlook is still running on their desktops?

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Chris Marsh]

Yep, Outlook is still running on the users desktops. Yes, Cached Exchange
Mode is setup it appears to be active.