In my experience, group policy is the only nearly indispensable tool on a Microsoft domain-controlled LAN which breaks very often and admits of almost zero solid documentation towards fix. Someday this may be thorough, Lord willing; for now, we have:
Part I, General
Part II, Destrangulation
Part III, Copying Files
This works in PowerShell. Some off-the-charts numbers will be reported for virtual NICs. The speed you want is in megabytes, so a gigabit NIC will read as 1000:
Get-CIMInstance -Class Win32_NetworkAdapter | Where-Object { $_.Speed -ne $null -and $_.MACAddress -ne $null } | foreach-object { ($_.Speed / 1000000) }
and this works in CMD. Reports speed in bytes per second, so gigabit is reported as “1000000000” and 100-megabit is “100000000”.
wmic NIC where NetEnabled=true get Name, Speed
A great little tool found by the extraordinary Zach Hogan:
Here is the only complete method known to this writer to automatically download and install all current Microsoft redists. It uses this:
https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/VcRedist
Steps:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force Install-Module -Name NuGet -SkipPublisherCheck -Force Import-Module -Name NuGet Install-Module -Name VcRedist -SkipPublisherCheck -Force Import-Module -Name VcRedist New-Item C:\VcRedist -ItemType Directory Get-VcList | Get-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist Get-VcList | Install-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist
The above installs all of the redistributables which Microsoft currently supports. Reportedly, some older ones (going back to 2005 at this writing) can be had using this:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Force Install-PackageProvider -Name NuGet -Force Install-Module -Name NuGet -SkipPublisherCheck -Force Import-Module -Name NuGet Install-Module -Name VcRedist -SkipPublisherCheck -Force Import-Module -Name VcRedist New-Item C:\VcRedist -ItemType Directory Get-VcList -Export All | Get-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist Get-VcList -Export All | Install-VcRedist -Path C:\VcRedist
You may wish to delete the downloadables after the procedure:
Remove-Item C:\VcRedist -Recurse -Force
Try step #1 here:
Courtesy of the extraordinary Mike Crayton.
Great info here:
http://woshub.com/fixing-high-memory-usage-by-metafile-on-windows-server-2008-r2/
using this for investigation:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff700229.aspx
and this service for cure:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9258
Something new:
At your own risk!!! For the brave and the risk-tolerant only, put five grams per liter of Hexagonal Boron Nitride, also called HBN:
https://www.bulletcoatings.com/product/hex-boron-nitride-hbn-powder/
in your engine oil. Smooth power, like wow :-) The stuff is actually very non-toxic, it is the primary ingredient in many women’s cosmetics. An extremely fine powder, and extremely slippery. Do NOT put it in any transmission…
For quite a while I had been curious as to why a simple method to do this was not available. CCLEANER and others do not reach into every user profile, and on many machines this is crucial, e.g., terminal servers. CATE was originated as a .VBS by the excellent David Barrett ( http://www.cedit.biz ) and has been rewritten thoroughly by yours truly (JEB of Ponderworthy). The current VBS is here.
The most recent version is a PowerShell script, which adds removal of Ask Partner Network folders from user profiles, and a good bit of speed and clean running. Future development will be in PowerShell, as part of the ponderworthy-tools project.
One thing discovered along the way, is even in XP there was a user profile called the “System Profile” — XP had it in C:\WINDOWS\System32\config\systemprofile — and some malware dumps junk into it, and sometimes many gigs of unwanted files can be found in its temporary storage. CATE cleans all user profiles including those, as well as the Windows Error Reporting cache, and the .NET caches, and the system TEMP folders, and in recent versions, many Windows log files which are often found in many thousands of fragments.
The tool is designed for Windows 10 down through XP. As of 2017-10-10, it is self-elevating if run non-administratively.
It is licensed as follows:
The 3-Clause BSD License
SPDX short identifier: BSD-3-Clause
Note: This license has also been called the “New BSD License” or “Modified BSD License”. See also the 2-clause BSD License.
Copyright 2017 Jonathan E. Brickman
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
These steps can improve Windows performance a whole lot. It works because a vast array of different applications and services in Windows utilize VSS on their backends. All of the below, except for one server-only step sometimes needed, is encapsulated in PowerShell script (3.0 and up) OVSS.ps1 , part of the windows-tools project.
To do the VSS optimization interactively, start an administrative CMD, and then…
Step 1:
vssadmin Delete Shadows /All
If there are orphan shadows, you will be asked whether you want to delete them. If there are and you delete them, you will see immediate performance benefit. Reportedly, Windows autodeletes them only after there are 64 per volume. We prefer to see zero! These build up as a result of bad shutdowns, drive and drive controller issues, and insufficient RAID resources to serve demands.
Step 2:
We now improve any existing preassociation of disk space for VSS. On some machines, this will increase performance very impressively, immediately. In general it keeps them smooth and stable and prevents hesitations. This does not reserve or take up the space, it just “associates” it, makes it ready for use, so that whenever Windows wants to do any of the bajillions of things it does with VSS, things ranging from tiny to enormous, it can skip that step.
It is worthwhile to know that C: on all workstation installs and many server installs, has a minimal preassociation already set up. And we should check to see if it has been done. So the first step is to check it. Do the below:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
If it gives you something like this:
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2013 Microsoft Corp.
Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-100000000000}\)\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-100000000000}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-100000000000}\)\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-100000000000}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 100 MB (20%)
Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-501f00000000}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{84214e3c-0000-0000-0000-501f00000000}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 bytes (0%)
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 373 GB (20%)
where “Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: “ for each volume is set to 20%, the rest has been done, you are fully optimized. Otherwise, if this is a desktop OS, we resize the existing association for each volume. For volumes without letters, and to pull a list of all VSS-ready volumes, see the note towards the end of this document.
So for the C drive, do the below in administrative CMD:
vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /MaxSize=20%
Do repeat for any other active hard drive partitions, D:, E:, et cetera. Don’t worry if you get an error, the next step covers it.
Step 3:
It may well throw an error, saying there is no such association. If this is a workstation OS, vssadmin lacks two commands which we need for any further steps, so in that case we are done. But on any Windows Server OS from 2008R2, if the error was thrown, we do an Add:
vssadmin Add ShadowStorage /For=E: /On=E: /MaxSize=20%
Step 4:
And finally (server only), one more thing which can help if, for instance, C: is almost full but E: has plenty of space:
vssadmin Delete ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: vssadmin Add ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=E: /MaxSize=20%
This maximizes overall performance, and also prevents possible backup failures and other issues due to insufficient disk space on C:.
Note:
On some machines, the volumes do not have letters. For these you will need to use the volume GUID path. In vssadmin list shadowstorage, they look like this:
Shadow Copy Storage association
For volume: (\\?\Volume{99ac05c7-c06b-11e0-b883-806e6f6e6963}\)\\?\Volume{99a
c05c7-c06b-11e0-b883-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (\\?\Volume{99ac05c7-c06b-11e0-b883-806e6f6e6963}
\)\\?\Volume{99ac05c7-c06b-11e0-b883-806e6f6e6963}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 B (0%)
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 0 B (0%)
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 32 MB (32%)
For such a situation, substitute \\?\Volume{99ac05c8-c06b-11e0-b883-806e6f6e6963} (the whole long string) for C: in the above command lines.
PowerShell will give GUI paths for all volumes thusly:
GWMI -namespace root\cimv2 -class win32_volume
References are here:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc788050.aspx
https://www.storagecraft.com/support/kb/article/289
http://backupchain.com/i/how-to-delete-all-vss-shadows-and-orphaned-shadows