by Michael B. Smith, MCSE/Exchange MVP

I’ve often heard “performance monitoring and management is an art”. I’ve even heard some people refer to it as a “black art”. There is no question that applying the proper boundaries and conditions to performance monitoring requires experience - and that experience may take a long time to acquire. However, even the most novice system administrator can make excellent headway at determining the major issues which may be associated with performance on any server.

In general, “bad” or “poor” performance can be attributed to one of four things:

• Processor overutilization
• Memory overutilization
• Disk overutilization
• Application issue
  

If you were a computer science major, you’ve definitely spent some time discussing, if not studying, queuing theory. For the purposes of this discussion, all you need to realize that if a particular value exceeds ((SQRT(2)/2)*n), which is basically (0.71*n), where ‘n’ is the scaling factor for the value, then to access any resource, you have an even chance that that resource is busy. Does that sound complicated? Well, it really isn’t.

Consider a single-core processor. It can only do one thing at a time. If the utilization of that processor is over 71% then when any individual task needs to use that processor, there is a greater than 50% chance that the processor is already busy. In other words, the task queue length for this processor will average greater than one. So…you need to add more processors!

You can make a similar argument for memory - if your memory is more than 71% utilized, then a request for a specific block or size of memory block has a greater than 50% chance of failing - because it’s already in use and there are no options - to satisfy the request will require use of your page file.

You can also make a similar argument for disk queuing. If your average disk queue exceeds 0.71, then your disk is too busy - you need to find some mechanism to reduce its utilization.

Can this same concept apply to application utilization? Well…not directly. If your processor utilization is less than 70%, and your memory utilization is less than 70% and your average disk queue length is less than 0.70…if you are still having performance issues, then your problem is probably application related!

So, how do you see this? You use the Perfmon tool. Perfmon has many names, depending on whether you are Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows XP, or Windows Vista. Regardless of the Windows version, click Start -> Run and then enter “Perfmon” and click OK. If you are in Vista or Windows 2008, you will need to then click on “Performance Monitor”.

Somewhere on the window that is displayed, you will find a “+”. Click on that “+”. You need to “add” Processor -> % Processor Time -> _Total, PhysicalDisk -> Avg. Disk Queue Length -> C:, and three counters for memory: Memory -> % Committed Bytes in Use and Memory -> Available Mbytes and Memory -> Pages/Sec.

If “% Processor Time” is over 71% - you need more processor. If “Memory -> %Committed Bytes in Use” is greater than 71% or “Memory -> Available Mbytes” is less than 50 or “Memory -> Pages/Sec” is greater than 100 - you need more memory. If “PhysicalDisk -> Avg. Disk Queue Length” is greater than 0.71 - you need to reduce the I/O load on your disks in some way. If all of these are OK, then you have application issues!

Obviously, these recommendations are “broad brush” - and they affect each other in some ways. However, if you track these values - you will always have a place to start when you are looking at performance.

The Find dialog in Outlook 2003 and earlier does not support Boolean searches, multiple keywords are always searched using the "OR" operator. The Advanced find dialog uses OR for multiple keywords in one field and AND for multiple fields. However, you can do a Boolean search using Advanced find if you enable QueryBuilder. This same method works with Views (for Filters and Automatic formatting) and Search folders (Outlook 2003/2007).

1. First you need to enable QueryBuilder by adding the QueryBuilder key to the registry.
2. Open the registry editor by typing regedit in the Start menu, Run command or in Vista's Start menu Start Search field.
3. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\xx.0\Outlook\, replacing xx with your version of Outlook.
4. Right click on the Outlook key and choose New, Key.
5. Name it QueryBuilder.
6. Close regedit.

Now when you open Advanced Find, create filters or automatic formatting rules for custom views, or create a Search folder, you'll see a tab called Query Builder. Add fields, conditions and values like you would on the Advanced tab and create logical groups by using AND or OR to tie the criteria together.

If you use Outlook 2003 on Vista you may have noticed some messages have the header in the message body, often when you were BCC’d on the message. There is now a hotfix for this (and other issues) available from Microsoft.

For more information see:
Description of the Outlook 2003 hotfix package: April 22, 2008
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951982

If you don't have a support contract, you may need to open a support incident to get the hotfix, but you can try this method first: Call 1-800-936-4900 (press 3 for hotfixes) and tell them you're calling to obtain the hotfix described in KB [number].

If you correspond with Mac users and have issues with attachments, see:

In Office Outlook 2003, you cannot open Macintosh binary attachments after you install security update MS08-15
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=951679 

Would you like to change the reminder time for a group of appointments or events? Say, the default birthday reminder time from 15 minutes to 2 weeks, in one move?

You'll need table view that groups the Remind beforehand field. Set one event to use the desired reminder, then drag the others to that group. Ok, so it going to take more than one move to set it up, but its makes it very easy to apply changes and works for many editable Outlook fields.

You'll need to start with a table view. The By category works well, or you can create a new custom group by view.

1. Turn off the reading pane so you have a single line view.
2. Right click on the row of field names and choose Field Chooser
3. Find the remind beforehand field (look in Date fields)
4. Drag it to the row of field names.
5. Right click on it and choose group by this field
6. Select the items that need changed and drag to the correct group.

This works on many Outlook fields, including (but not limited to) Private, Company name, and Categories.