We have encountered a few general probems over the years that we have had to resolve. Here are a few that feel worthy of passing on.
Outlook Hanging
Outlook runs slowly, hanging for up to 30 seconds when a button is clicked or message opened. High processor utilisation when this occurs.
Solution
Close Outlook. Locate the file Outcmd.dat and rename it, it is corrupt or excessively large. Outlook will re-create it when it is reopened. It is normally
found in the users documents and settings in the following sub directory : Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\outcmd.dat
Windows XP slow to shutdown
Encountered on a Windows XP machine, with the automatic updates but no regular network access. The machine began taking a very long time to shutdown. The machine had
not been updated recently apart from anti-virus. Checking the event log revealed a large number of log entries from the Automatic Update.
Solution
Switch off automatic updates completely.
Cannot reopen socket
A server application was failing to re-open a listening port and was already using SO_REUSEADDR.
A reboot was required to get the server running again.
Solution
The server process was restarting long lived processes and it was found that, although not used, the child process was inheriting a copy of the socket descriptor. To
resolve this you must set the close on exec bit for the socket in the server process as follows:-
