NT Workstation Tune-Up

When the topic is Windows NT performance tuning and optimization, NT Server gets most of the attention. Although NT Server optimization is important, pursuing enhanced workstation performance is equally worthwhile. What good are fast servers if the client workstations that connect to them run like molasses? You probably use NT Workstation to perform most of your day-to-day work, and you're always looking for ways to increase your workstation's network performance. I've compiled a list of my favorite network performance tips and tweaks for NT workstations. These techniques are easy to implement, and they can help you get snappier network performance from your NT desktop clients.

Spartan Services
More isn't always better. The more services and applications you run simultaneously, the slower your system will run. Each application steals memory from the OS and system cache and creates additional contention for the host CPU. You probably monitor and limit the number of user applications you launch during a session (e.g., by cleaning your Startup group), but don't forget to also scrutinize your workstation's background services (i.e., services that NT Setup automatically installs when you install NT).

You can improve system performance by auditing your NT workstation's services and removing unnecessary services that are wasting precious system resources. You uninstall services in the Services applet in Control Panel. Select the service you want to remove, click Startup, and select Disable in the Startup Type dialog box. For example, your workstation's Computer Browser service and Server service are candidates for removal.

Computer Browser service. Many users think their workstations require the Computer Browser service to browse the network, and I've met people who believe that disabling this service affects Internet browsing. The Computer Browser service is a component of NT's Windows network browsing services. However, this service engages the server side of Windows network browsing activities and is responsible for participating in browser elections (i.e., determining which machine is the master browser for a protocol on a network segment), regularly advertising the server to the elected segment master and domain master browsers, and maintaining a list of available network servers.

You can disable the Computer Browser service on most NT clients because this service doesn't affect a system's ability to receive browse lists from segment master browsers. Disabling this service not only reduces the number of potential master browsers on a network segment, which reduces the amount of browser election traffic, but can also help stabilize network browsing and browse lists' consistency. Although NT workstations don't engage in the browser wars that plagued earlier Windows versions, NT workstations can incorrectly believe that they are the master browser. Your NT servers should maintain network browse lists, so they are the only machines that should run this service. (For information about browser settings, see the sidebar "Optimizing Your Browser Service.")

Server service. NT's Server service is the Server Message Block (SMB—or Common Internet File System—CIFS) component of NT networking. This service is crucial on most NT servers, particularly on file servers, but the Server service isn't always necessary on NT workstations that act only as network clients. Although this service consumes your workstation's memory, CPU, and network resources, disabling the Server service doesn't free a lot of RAM. However, small businesses or consumer NT Workstation users that connect to the Internet without a firewall will benefit from this modification. Disabling the Server service makes it almost impossible for intruders to access a workstation's files or Registry because this service manages the sharing of these resources. However, if you disable the Server service, users can't share the system's resources, such as file and print shares, and administrators can't remotely access the machine's Registry.

Whether you'll benefit from disabling services depends on your network configuration and needs. Table 1 lists potentially unnecessary NT workstation services that you might disable to boost your workstation's performance.

Protocol Pruning
As with workstation services, running unnecessary network protocols on your workstation wastes system resources and slows network performance. Install only the protocols your workstation requires to function in your network environment. (To add or remove protocols, click Add or Remove on the Protocols tab of the Network applet in Control Panel, which Screen 1 shows.) You can standardize one protocol for your entire network, unless network interoperability requires more than one protocol (e.g., heterogeneous networks that contain OSs that don't support IP). However, gateways sometimes let you standardize one protocol for a heterogeneous network. For example, NT Server's Gateway Services for NetWare provides Novell NetWare interoperability without IPX, and Microsoft SNA Server offers SNA Host connectivity without Data Link Control (DLC). TCP/IP is usually the best choice for a unified protocol because it provides good performance and interoperability with several OSs and the Internet, and you can route it in WAN environments. In addition, most network print-server products support TCP/IP (e.g., HP JetDirect cards), so you don't need to run other protocols for network printer communication.

Another reason to reduce the number of protocols on your network is that network browsing takes place on a per protocol basis, which means that if you're running three network protocols (e.g., NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and IPX), you're concurrently running three sets of browser elections on your network. In some cases, different machines might act as master browsers for different protocols on the same segment. In turn, all this browsing increases undesirable network utilization.

Protocol pruning sounds great, but what if your networking needs require you to run multiple protocols? Never fear, you can optimize performance even in a multiprotocol environment. To guarantee that you're using the optimal network configuration, go to the Bindings tab of the Network applet in Control Panel. This tab controls the functionality and order of individual network protocol and service bindings in NT. Although some services and protocols can't bind to a particular protocol or adapter type (e.g., DLC can't bind to RAS adapters), your workstation often has several bindings for each installed service, including bindings to multiple network cards and protocols. You can use the Bindings tab, which Screen 2, page 75, shows, to display network bindings by service, protocol, or adapter. For each network adapter listed, you can control the priority order that NT uses to service individual network services and protocols on that adapter and whether a particular binding is active. (Although you can enable or disable individual bindings in each of these views, you can change the priority order of individual bindings only in the all services and all protocols views.)

On the Bindings tab, determine which protocols you need on which adapters and consider disabling any unnecessary bindings. In addition to LAN adapters, the Bindings tab lists RAS-created virtual network adapters. The tab lists these RAS and DUN adapters as Remote Access WAN Wrapper entries. Disable individual network bindings for adapters that don't need a particular protocol or service. For example, if you run TCP/IP and NetBEUI on your LAN, but you require only NetBEUI for dial-up RAS connections, disable the binding for NetBEUI to the LAN adapter. Refining network bindings streamlines your network configuration and helps eliminate superfluous network traffic.

A final and more extreme method for optimizing protocol and binding performance in a multiprotocol environment is to install multiple NICs or one multiport NIC on each adapter and leave only one transport protocol bound to each adapter. When you dedicate a NIC or NIC port to a protocol, you ensure that no competition occurs with other protocol traffic on that adapter. However, I recommend this method only if you install NICs on different network segments. If you install NICs on the same segment, NetBIOS name conflicts might occur because multiple LAN adapters register the same NetBIOS workstation name.

If you decide not to disable an unnecessary network binding, at least ensure that the binding is in the proper place in the binding order. Decide which protocols you usually use on an adapter, and reorder the protocol bindings to reflect this priority. Use the all services view to decide which protocols you most often use because this view lets you see all three levels of network bindings: service, protocol, and adapter. You can also use the all protocols view to optimize the order of adapters for each protocol; however, this view doesn't include service-related bindings. Controlling protocols' and services' bindings order helps ensure that NT processes network traffic optimally and gives preferential treatment to your most important protocols and adapters.

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