SBS 2008 unresponsive

I have a SBS 2008 Standard SP2 installed on an Intel S3420GP, with 4GB RAM,
2x500GB HDDs on a mirror and 2 x 1TB stand alones. There is also the Intel
SRCSATAWB RAID Controller.

My problem is that SBS is unresponsive after I log in. I can click on the
icons, but the menus just freeze, all of them. Iv reinstalled 3 times since
Friday, still, the same thing. It installs properly, loads updates,
configures Exchange, the works! I load NOD32, Chipset, VGA drivers (all
latest from Intel) and all the while the machine is workin well. I configure
my DHCP etc. When I finish all of that, with a couple of restarts in between,
and try yo use the server again, it just becomes unresponvise. I cant get the
Netowrk Properties, I cant load the Services page, Task Manager loads but
also frezees... But there is activity on the server. If I restart in Safe
Mode, everthing works normally, no problem.

What could be causing this?

I really need urgent help here.

Thanks guys

Any messages? Anything in the event logs that might help? You can see them
in safe mode.

If you run msconfig and uncheck everything that is not MS and restart - called
a "clean boot", any help? If so, you can start them back using the 50-50
rule until you find it.

How big is the system partition, and what is the amount of free space?

Avoid any network or video driver updates that come via automatic updates.

Also.... you will be a bit sluggish with only 4 GB RAM, but this would not
cause the lack of response you are seeing.

Uninstall Nod32 (and all Eset software) from the server to see if that fixes
the problem.

And you aren't unchecking ipv6 are you?

I had the very same symptoms that appeared after one week of SBS 2008
standard (no sp2 at that time) that was in production, when after one week
was rebooted and on reboot the exact same symptoms appeared. Luckily the
server was rebooted late evening and an all night trying to make this work by
7am that avoided any down time for the client otherwise atleast one day of
downtime on a new install within one week.

Here is what you can do, reboot in safe mode, go into msconfig, startup tab,
and click on disbale all non-microsoft services, then reboot in normal mode.
If the server behaves normal then it's one of those services that were
disabled, start them one by one and reboot to find out which one is the
culprit. In my case it was the Trend Micro Worry Free 6.0 Advanced that was
causing it. This is still an unresolved issue at my end where I had to run
the server with all trend micro services disabled for a while, at this time
the trend micro messaging services is not installed, two exchange services
are delayed start to be able to run this server. I got help from Trend Micro
tier 2 support and also Microsoft support.

I suspect it could the antivirus software, uninstall the antivirus in safe
mode and reboot to see if that takes care of it.

I should have mentoned - as soon as you log in to the server start two or
three DOS windows from "start-run", I relied on the dos windows to be able to
shutdown the server gracefully. If I started the "services.msc" from the dos
windows it froze the dos window and also did not open the services windows,
so if your dos window freezes you still have a couple more to rely on to
shutdown the server gracefully with the shutdown command.

Install 2k8 SP2.

There's a known issue with tdi.sys and trend interaction.

I've come across this exact issue with a client. They have SBS 2008 with
exchange 07 on the box. What's happening is the exchange services are stuck
in a starting/shutting down mode. The only way I've been able to resolve this
is by turning off all Trend Worry Free Advanced services in safe mode and
disabling the Exchange services. Restarting into windows and then turning on
the exchange services. My issue is I can't have Trend troubleshoot it because
to restart the server takes nearly 30min, that's another issue becuase the
server should be super quick.

So I uninstalled Trend, got it working, put Trend back on and it worked for
approximately 3 days and now email isn't working but everything else is.

Any help appreciated.

What version of Trend Micro WFBS are you using (Jasminder is on 6.0)? If you
are using WFBS 6.0, have you installed SP1 yet? You can get SP1 here:
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/p...p?productid=39

Have you tried setting global settings to DISable the Smart Scan feature and
just use Conventional Scan?

With the issue still unresolved, here is what I have done to keep going:
1. Complete uninstall of the Trend Micro from add remove programs. The
uninstall does leaves some reminents that have to be cleaned out manually and
I don't have a full list of all registry entries and others. But the add
remove program did bring the server back to normal operation and it did feel
much better to login to the server that behaved normal.
2. Trend has three components (i) master security server (ii) messaging
security server (iii) client server security agent. First installed only the
trend's master security server and none of the other components. As this
problem in my case starts after a reboot, not after the install as it didn't
ask to reboot. I manually rebooted after the install.
3. On reboot one of the symptoms reappeared, which is the (i) Exchange
information store and Exchange System attendent do not start and have to be
started manually from services. I stopped at this point to not install the
other two components as it was clearly the partial symptoms that reappeared.
After a week did another couple of reboot and the behaviour was consistent
with these two exchagne services not starting. Please note that mostly it's
both these services that don't start but sometimes it's only the Exchange
information store that doesn't start on reboot.
4. After some thinking I got bold to install the client server security
agent on the server too, but not the Messaging server. Plus set the two
exchange services to start up type of "delayed start". Now on reboot it still
takes a little while for those two exchange services to start (they say
"starting" for a little while sometimes even upto 5 minutes or so) but indeed
they do start with this work around.
5. Decided not to install the messaging component as we use www.mxlogic.com
service for email to pass through. BTW, the sp1 to trend was applied that
came out on oct.16th and also the firewall was turned off for desktop/server
after this sp1 install. Also smartscan was disabled (after installing sp1).
6. With the above, things seem to be working. It appears to me, something
somewhere that Trend Micro and Microsoft need to work out is not in place.
The memory dump provided to Trend Mico didn't bring out anything. It also
appears to me this combo of sbs2008 and Trend Micro WFBS 6 is a hit and miss.
I have another very similar setup with no issues, that is HP ML350, 12gb ram,
6 physical drives with 3 mirrors. Do I want to gamble more of WFBS 6 and
SBS2008, or is there another antivirus that will play well? Trend Micro
support is monday to friday business hours. The server reboot they want done
can usually be done after hours only (and client starts to wonder why do you
need that many reboots) and if the problem reappears? Yes you can buy premium
support to keep you covered 24x7. Anyone had such drastic issue with Symanec
Antivirus, maybe that should be on my list next for better experience.

Thanx for the responses guys. The last reinstall I did, when got to the
desktop, I ONLY installed IE8 and restarted. The machine came back to the
exact same problem. I check on the SBS Console (that was the only thing I
could access) and certain services had stopped namely, The Windows Update
Service, Background Inteligent Transfer Service, DHCP Service, KtRm for
distribution Trasnaction Coordinator, The Distributed Transaction
Coordinator, Windows Remote Management and a cpl of Exchange servies. I
switched off the machine, even unpluggin it. When I powered it up again, it
was working fine, even prompted me to install new hardware. I installed NOD
32 (incuding the exceptions Eset gave me) and when I tried to install the
chipset (latest from Intel's website), the installation failed. Upon
restarting, the server was frozen again. Havent tried it again ever since...

The machine will run 8GB RAM by the end of the week, my suppliers just didnt
have stock.
And to Susan, I have been unchecking IPv6, none of my devices use it. And I
cant configure it at all, Im not familiar with it at all.
The first few times I had this server working, I had not rebooted it since
SBS finished installin. And it worked for hours without freezing. I had
practically configured everything I needed to, just had to start puttin users
on the domain. It was until I restarted, that it came back frozen! And al the
times I was reintstallin it, it did just that. After the installation was
done, I would immediately start configuring it, installin drivers, chipset,
antivirus, settin up the network, with no restart in between. Until after a
couple of hours, I restart and the damn thing is frozen!

As Crazy as this is going to sound, your problem is most likely caused by
unchecking IPv6 on any of your adapters. If you uncheck IPv6, exchange will
not start properly. Also explorer will become unresponsive. Also, SBS2008
only allows 1 nic, and iscsi cards connected to a san count toward your nic
count. take it from me don't try to fight it. We tried to get away with
having a second nic connected to our emc san and it corrupted the whole
thing.

You can disable IPv6 but you must do it thourgh the registry and that came
straight from Microsoft support